The nature of impending fatherhood is that you are doing something that you're unqualified to do, and then you become qualified while doing it.

Congratulations! You're a woman. Now die.

But once that string gets cut, kid, you can't uncut it. Do you get what I'm saying?

I don't think we should see the world of books as fundamentally separate from the world of the Internet. Yes, the Internet contains a lot of videos of squirrels riding skateboards, but it can also be a place that facilitates big conversations about books.

I didn't want to see them lower him into the ground in the spot he'd picked out with his dad, and I didn't want to see his parents sink to their knees in the dew-wet grass and moan in pain.

I was thinking about the universe wanting to be noticed, and how I had to notice it as best I could. I felt that I owed a debt to the universe that only my attention could repay, and also that I owed a debt to everybody who didn’t get to be a person anymore and everyone who hadn’t gotten to be a person yet.

...It was nice to spend time with someone so interesting.