I missed you even when I was with you. That’s been my problem. I miss what I already have, and I surround myself with things that are missing.

I hated myself for going, why couldn't I be the kind of person who stays?

I shook my tambourine the whole time, because it helped me remember that even though I was going through different neighborhoods, I was still me.

A map such as that one is worth many hundreds, and as luck will have it, thousands of dollars. But more than this, it is a remembrance of that time before our planet was so small. When this map was made, I thought, you could live without knowing where you were not living.

I write because I want to end my loneliness. Books make people less alone. That, before and after everything else, is what books do. They show us that conversations are possible across distances.

She was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating its subtle nuances. She was a prism through which sadness could be divided into its infinite spectrum.

We believed in our grandmother’s cooking more fervently than we believed in God.