The discovery that heartbreak is indeed heartbreaking consoles us about our humanity.

Half an ear cocked, something in me, all night, every night, is waiting for you to come home.

It's an apathy so absolute that it's like a hole you might fall in.

...You can only subject people to anguish who have a conscience. You can only punish people who have hopes to frustrate or attachments to sever; who worry what you think of them. You can really only punish people who are already a little bit good.

Perhaps I overemphasized the value of keeping busy.... I liked to imagine that I was incapable of doing nothing for afternoons myself, but maybe what disturbed me was that I was capable of it. I feared this was a knack one could get the hang of rather readily, and it was therefore now lurking in my house waiting for me to pick it up like a winter flu.

Desire is one of the burning experiences of human life.

I thought at the time that I couldn't be horrified anymore, or wounded. I suppose that's a common conceit, that you've already been so damaged that damage itself, in its totality, makes you safe.