The end of suffering does not justify the suffering, what a mess I am, I thought, what a fool, how foolish and narrow, how worthless, how pinched and pathetic, how helpless.

The philosopher Elaine Scarry has observed that "beauty always takes place in the particular." Cruelty, on the other hand, prefers abstraction.

It's the tragedy of loving, you can't love anything more than something you miss.

I was more alone than if I had been alone.

Oskar Schell: If the sun were to explode, you wouldn't even know about it for 8 minutes because thats how long it takes for light to travel to us. For eight minutes the world would still be bright and it would still feel warm. It was a year since my dad died and I could feel my eight minutes with him... were running out.

I don't mind if smiles come at my expense, I'm a small price to pay.

The hardest part of writing is not to get the ideas but to remember, why it is important to get them.