I hadn’t been in proper school in three years. My parents were my two best friends. My third best friend was an author who did not know I existed.

You know what I hate? The outdoors. I mean, generally. I don't like outside. I'm an inside person. I'm all about refrigeration and indoor plumbing and Judge Judy.

I’ve always sort of preferred people who are not entirely likable.

Being a person, I had come to realize, is a communal activity. Dogs know how to be dogs. But people do not know how to be people unless and until they learn from other people.

I needed, I decided, to really know her, because I needed more to remember. Before I could begin the shameful process of forgetting the how and the why of her living and dying, I needed to learn it: How. Why. When. Where. What.

You live for pretentious metaphors.

Witness also that when we talk about literature, we do so in the present tense. When we speak of the dead, we are not so kind.