Every arrangement in life carried with it the sadness, the sentimental shadow, of its not being something else, but only itself.

Things between us were dissolving like an ice cub in a glass: the smaller it got, the faster it disappeared.

Personally I've never put much store by honesty- I mean how can you trust a word whose first letter you don't even pronounce

Forgiveness lives alone and far off down the road, but bitterness and art are close, gossipy neighbors, sharing the same clothesline, hanging out their things, getting their laundry confused.

Adults are living increasingly as children: completely in their imaginations. Reading Harry Potter while every newspaper in the country goes out of business. They know so little that is real.

Your numbness is something perhaps you cannot help. It is what the world has done to you. But your coldness. That is what you do to the world.

This lunge at moral fastidiousness was something she'd noticed a lot in people around here. They were not good people. They were not kind. But they recycled their newspapers!