I felt shame for living in a nation of unprecedented prosperity-a nation that spends a smaller percentage of income on food than any other civilization has in human history-but in the name of affordability treats the animals it eats with cruelty so extreme it would be illegal if inflicted on a dog.

Shyness is when you turn your head away from something you want.

It is better to lose than never to have had.

And so it was when anyone tried to speak: their minds would become tangled in remembrance. Words became floods of thought with no beginning or end, and would drown the speaker before he could reach the life raft of the point he was trying to make. It was impossible to remember what one meant, what, after all of the words, was intended.

I'm sorry for my inability to let unimportant things go, for my inability to hold on to the important things.

She had fallen in love so many times that she began to suspect she was not falling in love at all, but doing something much more ordinary.

Why I'm not where you are ...