It was good to walk into a library again; it smelled like home.

...what will we someday do, I always wonder, without the pleasures of turning through books and stumbling on things we never meant to find?

I've read there is no such thing as a single tear, that old poetic trope. And perhaps there isn't, since hers was simply a companion to my own.

I keep telling myself I should try very hard to write a novel of about 210 pages... I don't seem to be capable of it, but I keep hoping it will happen.

You are a total stranger and you want to take my library book.

These atheist cultures were certainly diligent in preserving the relics of their saints.

In those days, I still thoroughly enjoyed the romance I called "by myself"; I didn't know yet how it gets lonely, picks up a sharp edge later on that ruins a day now and then-- ruins more than that, if you're not careful.