It seems to me self-evident that if you have a life, things happen in it, and certain things do change; certain things end. People you know die.

And meanwhile the sad truth was that not everyone could be extraordinary, not everyone could be extremely cool; because whom would this leave to be ordinary?

The world was ending then, it's ending still, and I'm happy to belong to it again.

Robin turned and looked straight into her. "What's life for?" "I don't know." "I don't either. But I don't think it's about winning.

Mr. Franzen said he and Mr. Wallace, over years of letters and conversations about the ethical role of the novelist, had come to the joint conclusion that the purpose of writing fiction was “a way out of loneliness.” (NY Times article on the memorial service of David Foster Wallace.)

Good novels are produced by people who voluntarily isolate themselves and go deep, and report from the depths on what they find.

[T]o love a specific person, and to identify with his or her struggles and joys as if they were your own, you have to surrender some of your self.