Being with him made my brain quiet. I didn't have to invent a thing.

I thought about all of the things that everyone ever says to each other, and how everyone is going to die, whether it's in a millisecond, or days, or months, or 76.5 years, if you were just born. 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.

...because he had been waiting for someone to come back to him, so every time someone knocked on the door, he couldn't stop himself from hoping it might be that person, even though he knew he shouldn't hope.

I'd lost count of the disappointments.

This brings me back to the image of Kafka standing before a fish in the Berlin aquarium, a fish on which his gaze fell in a newly found peace after he decided not to eat animals. Kafka recognized that fish as a member of his invisible family- not as his equal, of course, but as another being that was his concern.

Why do I write? It's not that I want people to think I am smart, or even that I am a good writer. I write because I want to end my loneliness.

I think it's a greater risk not to write about 9\11. If you're in my position - a New Yorker who felt the event very deeply and a writer who wants to write about things he feels deeply about - I think it's risky to avoid what's right in front of you.