Cher Marcel, Allô. I am Oskar's mom. I have thought about it a ton, and I have decided that it isn't obvious why Oskar should go to French lessons, so he will no longer be going to go see you on Sundays like he used to. I want to thank you very much for everything you have taught Oskar, particularly the conditional tense, which is weird. Obviously, there's no need to call me when Oskar doesn't come to his lessons, because I already know, because this was my decision. Also, I will keep sending you checks, because you are a nice guy. Votre ami dévouée, Mademoiselle Schell.

Also, I designed a pretty fascinating bracelet, where you put a rubber band around your favorite book of poems for a year, and then you take it off and wear it.

There's nothing wrong with not understanding yourself.

In the end, everyone loses everyone. There was no invention to get around that, and so I felt, that night, like the turtle that everything else in the universe was on top of.

I got tired, I told him. Not worn out, but worn through. Like one of those wives who wakes up one morning and says I can't bake any more bread.

Think of the beginning of the story of the beginning of everything: Adam (without Eve and without divine guidance) names the animals. Continuing his work, we call stupid people bird-brained, cowardly people chickens, fools turkeys. Are these the best names we have to offer? If we can revise the notion of women coming from a rib, can’t we revise our categorizations of the animals that, draped with barbecue sauce, end up as the ribs on our dinner plates — or for that matter, the KFC in our hands?

Marriage is like a chess match is initiated and the board expands over time until it takes up all of a life.