The philosopher Elaine Scarry has observed that "beauty always takes place in the particular." Cruelty, on the other hand, prefers abstraction.

Everything is the way it is because everything was the way it was

Once you hear something, you can never return to the time before you heard it.

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.

In bed that night I invented a special drain that would be underneath every pillow in New York, and would connect to the reservoir. Whenever people cried themselves to sleep, the tears would all go to the same place, and in the morning the weatherman could report if the water level of the Reservoir of Tears had gone up or down, and you could know if New York is in heavy boots.

I started carrying blank books like this one around, which I would fill with all the things I couldn't say.

Parents are always more knowledgeable than their children, and children are always smarter than their parents.