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.

Everything that's born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they're all on fire, and we're all trapped.

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.

Sometimes I can feel my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.

I need an office, so I can have a place where I don't write.

Every night before putting her to sleep, Yankel counts her ribs, as if one might have disappeared in the course of the day and become the seed and soil for some new companion to steal her away from him.

In the end, everyone loses everyone. There was no invention to get around that.