Emotions, in my experience aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic traincar constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." ... I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life.

Remember that day you said you loved me? Remember that? See, you could do that because you're basically a sane person, who grew up in a loving, sane family. You could take a risk like that. But in my family we didn't go around saying we loved each other. We went around screaming at each other. So what do I do, when you say you love me? I go and undermine it.

What if you had faith and performed good works, what if you died and went to heaven, and what if all the people you met there were people you didn't like?

We Greeks are a moody people. Suicide makes sense to us. Putting up Christmas lights after your own daughter does it--that makes no sense. What my yia yia could never understand about America was why everyone pretended to be happy all the time.” -Mrs. Karafilis

She may have looked normal on the outside, but once you'd seen her handwriting you knew she was deliciously complicated inside.

I was unemployable when I got out of college.

What are you doing here, honey? You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets." (...) "Obviously, Doctor," she said, "you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl.