Maybe this was our last summer as best friends. I feel like something's going to change now and I'm not going to be able to change it back. —Margaret

Even with all of its changing, Brooklyn's architecture still feels like home, the language feels like home. It's changing so quickly that it's surprising. It's surprising still, when someone looks kind of askance to see me walking towards them.

In all your getting, get understanding.

Sometimes...you have to try to forget people you love just so you can keep living.

Mama was always saying I was a brain snob, that I didn't like people who didn't think. I didn't know if that was snobby. Who wanted to walk around explaining everything to people all the time?

A long time ago, Anne used to talk about energy - how that was all that love was - ions connecting across synapses of time and air. Don't rationalize, she'd say. None of it will ever make sense. I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes, not wanting to cry. Anne was right. None of it made any sense.

When I was a kid, I got in trouble for lying a lot, and I had a teacher say, instead of lying, write it down, because if you write it down, it's not a lie anymore; it's fiction.