One of the others shouted a translation: "The beautiful couple is beautiful.

but there was nothing I could do to dim the supernovae exploding inside my brain, an endless chain of intra cranial firecrackers

We must strike down the insidious lie that a book is the creation of an individual soul labouring in isolation. We must strike it down because it threatens the overall quality and breadth of American literature.

Before any of it could make sense, it had to be heard.

When I think about [characters], I like to think of them in their relationships to each other. In the same way, I think that's how humans are ultimately defined. We are our relationships to one another. And a lot of what's interesting about us happens in the context of other people.

Breaking up isn't something that gets done to you; its something that happens with you.

The town was paper, but the memories were not.