I love the idea of books being more than books, or being, rather, something other than books.

If there is no love in the world, we will make a new world, and we will give it walls, and we will furnish it with soft red interiors, from the inside out, and give it a knocker that resonates like a diamond falling to a jeweller's felt so that we should never hear it. Love me, because love doesn't exist, and I have tried everything that does.

In the end, everyone loses everyone.

We know, at least, that this decision (ending factory farming) will help prevent deforestation, curb global warming, reduce pollution, save oil reserves, lessen the burden on rural America, decrease human rights abuses, improve publish health, and help eliminate the most systematic animal abuse in history.

Everyone is always in need of something that another person can give, be it undivided attention, a kind word or deep empathy. There is no better use of a life than to be attentive to such needs.

[…] but I believe that things are extremely complicated, and her looking over me was as complicated as anything could ever be. But it was also incredibly simple.

Time was passing like a hand waving from a train that I wanted to be on.