You matter as much as the things that matter to you. And I got so backwards trying to matter to him. All this time, there were real things to care about: real, good people who care about me, and this place. It's so easy to get stuck. You just get caught in being something, being special or cool or whatever, to the point where you don't even know why you need it; you just think you do.

Light, the visible reminder of Invisible Light.

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

March 4th, the only day that is also a sentence

And since she drove to work every morning, I could only use the car on weekends. Well, weekends and the middle of the goddamned night.

Some people have lives; some people have music.

Neither novels or their readers benefit from any attempts to divine whether any facts hide inside a story. Such efforts attack the very idea that made-up stories can matter, which is sort of the foundational assumption of our species.