I watched the sheets breathe when she breathed, like how Dad used to say that trees inhale when people exhale, because I was too young to understand the truth about biological processes.

Not responding is a response - we are equally responsible for what we don't do.

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.

[...]It is as if after surviving so much, there was no longer reason to survive.

People who want to find a place of rest, want to find an integrated personality, sense of self, want fewer fractures in their lives.

They reciprocated the great and saving lie--that our love for things is greater than our lover for our love for things--willfully playing the parts they wrote for themselves, willfully creating and believing fictions necessary for life.

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