In America right now, we use words like 'smart' to talk about bombs. American rhetoric is grounded in ideas of capital-G Good, capital-E Evil, and it's very clear who is on which side. But in a book you can do just the opposite. You can use all lower-case words.

I didn't feel empty. I wished I'd felt empty. ... I wanted to be empty like an overturned pitcher. But I was full like a stone.

How did her life live itself without her.

Literature was the only religion her father practiced, when a book fell on the floor he kissed it, when he was done with a book he tried to give it away to someone who would love it.

...he was leaving me. I wondered if I should stop him. If I should wrestle him to the ground and force him to love me. I wanted to hold his shoulders down and shout into his face.

Murdering someone would surely prove that you are capable of killing, but it wouldn't be the most reasonable way to understand why you shouldn't do it.

The mistakes I've made are dead to me. But I can't take back the things I never did.