Library books were, I suddenly realized, promiscuous, ready to lie down in the arms of anyone who asked. Not like bookstore books, which married their purchasers, or were brokered for marriages to others.

I believe marriage is a spectator sport.

I come from food the way some people come from money. Food was the medium I grew up in, what we talked about, what shaped our days.

After most deaths, I imagine, the awfulness lies in how everything’s changed….there’s a hole. It’s person-shaped and it follows you everywhere…. For us what was killing was how nothing had changed. We’d been waiting to be transformed, and now here we were, back in our old life.

Books remember all the things you cannot contain.

For some people, history is simply what your wife looks good standing in front of. It’s what’s cast in bronze, or framed in sepia tones, or acted out with wax dummies and period furniture. It takes place in glass bubbles filled with water and chunks of plastic snow; it’s stamped on souvenir pencils and summarized in reprint newspapers. History nowadays is recorded in memorabilia. If you can’t purchase a shopping bag that alludes to something, people won’t believe it ever happened.

It's a happy life, but someone is missing. It's a happy life, and someone is missing.