I do think ordinariness is, in a way, the enemy, but not ordinariness as the opposite of flamboyance.

Why is taste, the crudest of our senses, exempted from the ethical rules that govern our other senses?

I can only hold on to the things I want to lose.

You need to have a reader's sympathy in order to accomplish anything. It's like at a reading, I find it's better to read something funny than to read something tragic. It just goes over better because you have a finite amount of time with somebody. Of course, in a book, you have a lot of time. But you still do want to make a certain impression right when you begin.

I try not to remember the life that I didn’t want to lose but lost and have to remember

Things were happening around us, but nothing was happening between us.

These little daily choices that we're so used to thinking are irrelevant are the most important thing we do all day long.