I felt I couldn't lose anything else, but just then I realized I already had: I'd lost the hope that I would ever be loved in just that way again.

The writing is clean. I really wouldn't have changed a word. Most of it is true, too, except that the hero quits drinking and the girl grows up. On the last page, the couple gets married, which is a nice way for a love story to end.

Finally, I asked how you got a boy to like you back. She said, 'Just be yourself,' as though I had any idea who that might be.

I don't have any real goals except to follow one good sentence with another... I'm not the kind of writer who has a map.

You don't need a reason to forgive... If you want to go on with someone, that is what you do.

But then you hear that he can't hear you, you see that he can't see you. You are not here--and you haven't even died yet. You see yourself through his eyes, as The Generic Woman, the skirted symbol on the ladies' room door.

You will say good-bye for all the right reasons. You're tired of living in wait for his apocalypse. You have your own fight on your hands, and though it's no bigger or more noble than his, it will require all of your energy. It's you who has to hold on to earth. You have to tighten your grip -- which means letting go of him.