You want to give him the book of his own life, the book that will locate him, parent him, arm him for the changes.

It's the city's crush and heave that move you; its intricacy; its endless life. You know the story about Manhattan as a wilderness purchased for strings of beads, but you find it impossible not to believe that it has always been a city; that if you dug beneath it you would find the ruins of another, older city, and then another and another.

Please, God, send me something to adore.

I think writing is, by definition, an optimistic act.

Yes," she answers and does not move. She might, at this moment, be nothing but a floating intelligence; not even a brain inside a skull, just a presence that perceives, as a ghoast might. Yes, she thinks, this is probably how it must feel to be a ghost. It's a little like reading, isn't it-that same sensation of knowing people, settings, situations, without playing any particular part beyond that of the willing observer.

You cannot find peace by avoiding life, Leonard.

Love is deep, a mystery - who wants to understand its every particular?