I felt it very moving to feel his touch, and to remember that hands can also show love.

I asked my schoolmate Mary to write a letter to me. She was funny and full of life. She liked to run around her empty house without any clothes on, even once she was too old for that. Nothing embarrassed her. I admired that so much, because everything embarrassed me, and that hurt me. She loved to jump on her bed. She jumped on her bed for so many years that one afternoon, while I watched her jump, the seams burst. Feathers filled the small room. Our laughter kept the feathers in the air. I thought about birds. Could they fly if there wasn’t someone, somewhere, laughing?

You can see the most beautiful things from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. I read somewhere that people on the street are supposed to look like ants, but that's not true. They look like little people. And the cars look like little cars. And even the buildings look little. It's like New York is a miniature replica of New York, which is nice, because you can see what it's really like, instead of how it feels when you're in the middle of it.

She maintained a careful balance by her window, never allowing the men to come too close, never allowing them to stray too far.

I wish my days could be washed away like the chalk lines of my days.

While it is always possible to wake a person who's sleeping, no amount of noise will wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.

Fiction works when it makes a reader feel something strongly.