I tried the key in all the doors, even though he said he didn't recognize it. It's not that I didn't trust him, becuase I did. It's that at the end of my search I wanted to be able to say: I don't know how I could have tried harder.

It was the first time I had ever made love. I wondered if he knew that. It felt like crying. I wondered, Why does anyone ever make love?

I usually write away from home, in coffee shops, on trains, on planes, in friends’ houses. I like places where there’s stuff going on that you can lift your eyes, see something interesting, overhear a conversation.

She was so beautiful, like someone who you will never meet, but always dream of meeting, like someone who is too good for you.

Time was passing like a hand waving from a train I wanted to be on. I hope you never have to think about anything as much as I think about you.

The end of suffering does not justify the suffering, and so there is no end to suffering.

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.