Do we tend to recall the most important parts of a novel or those that speak most directly to us, the truest lines or the flashiest ones?

Because love is the meeting point of truth and magic. Truth, as in photography; magic, as in ballooning.

Grief seems at first to destroy not just all patterns, but also to destroy a belief that a pattern exists.

This is what those who haven’t crossed the tropic of grief often fail to understand: the fact that someone is dead may mean that they are not alive, but doesn’t mean that they do not exist.

Life seemed even more of a guessing game than usual.

Is despair wrong? Isn’t it the natural condition of life after a certain age? … After a number of events, what is there left but repetition and diminishment? Who wants to go on living? The eccentric, the religious, the artistic (sometimes); those with a false sense of their own worth. Soft cheeses collapse; firm cheeses endurate. Both go mouldy.

History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.