I wanted to find a place to hide from all of it, where the nightmares and the rivers and reality couldn't find me. For me, that place was always inside a book.

Don’t think so. We all make our choices, and those choices have consequences.

Was it worth it? Feeling better for a minute or two, knowing that the cold would still be out there waiting?

You watch yourself. One day you're going to pick a hole in the sky and the universe is gonna fall right through. Then we'll all be in a fix

No, books. She would have maybe twenty going at a time, lying all over our house--on the kitchen table, by her bed, the bathroom, our car, her bags, a little stack at the edge of each stair. And she'd use anything she could find for a bookmark. My missing sock, an apple core, her reading glasses, another book, a fork.

...you cannot punish a wet child for the rain.

You couldn't unburn the books. You could only buy new ones.