All along — not only since she left, but for a decade before — I had been imagining her without listening, without knowing that she made as a poor a window as I did. And so I could not imagine her as a person who could feel fear, who could feel isolated in a roomful of people, who could be shy about her record collection because it was too personal to share. Someone who might have read travel books to escape having to live in the town that so many people escape to. Someone who — because no one thought she was a person — had no one to really talk to.

How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!" to a margin note written in her loop-heavy cursive: Straight & Fast.

I can't be you. You can't be me. You can imagine another well—but never quite perfectly, you know?

Ashes to ashes. Garage sale to garage sale,” I said.

I was so frustrated with him. "I just want to be enough for you, but I never can be. This can never be enough for you. But this is all you get. You get me, and your family, and this world. This is your life. I'm sorry if it sucks. But you're not going to be the first man on Mars, and you're not going to be an NBA star, and you're not going to hunt Nazis.

Last words are always harder to remember when no one knows that someone's about to die.

The tales of our exploits will survive as long as the human voice itself,' he said. 'And even after that, when the robots recall the human absurdities of sacrifice and compassion, they will remember us.