Who wants to know that the person you love and need the most can just vanish forever

The guy's life drunk, I think, makes Candide look like a sourpuss. Does he even know that death exists?

I don't know how the heart withstands it.

I wonder why bereaved people even bother with mourning clothes when the grief itself provides such an unmistakable wardrobe.

I'm layering away: sauce, noodles, I belong to you, cheese, sauce, my heart is yours, noodles, cheese, I hear your soul in your music, cheese, cheese, CHEESE.

I could step out of this sad life like it's an old sorry dress.

This is the secret I kept from you, Bails, from myself too: I think I liked that Mom was gone, that she could be anybody, anywhere, doing anything. I liked that she was our invention, a woman living on the last page of the story with only what we imagined spread out before her. I liked that she was ours, alone.