It's because of you when I'm in bed in the morning that I can wind my spring and tell myself I have to live another good day.

There’s nothing wrong with not looking like something. It just means you don’t fit the stereotype yet.

It made her think of Laika, the dog. The man-made satellite streaking soundlessly across the blackness of outer space. The dark, lustrous eyes of the dog gazing out the tiny window. In the infinite loneliness of space, what could the dog possibly be looking at?

I was feeling lonely without her, but the fact that I could feel lonely at all was consolation. Loneliness wasn't such a bad feeling. It was like the stillness of the pin oak after the little birds had flown off.

Even if you managed to escape from one cage, weren't you just in another, larger one?

I'll write to you. A super-long letter, like in an old-fashioned novel

I spent thirty-three years in another man's shadow. I went everywhere he went, I helped him with everything he did. I was in a sense a part of him. When you live like that for a long time, you gradually lose track of what it is you yourself really want out of life