No time spent with a book is ever entirely wasted, even if the experience is not a happy one: there’s always something to be learned. It’s just that, every now and again, you can hit a patch of reading that makes you feel as if you’re pootling about. [...] But what can you do about it? We don’t choose to waste our reading time; it just happens. The books let us down.

Sometimes we have to be judged by our one-offs.

I'm simply pointing out that what happens to us isn't the whole story. That I continue to exist even when we're not together.

Cynicism is our shared common language, the Esperanto that actually caught on, and though I'm not fluent in it - I like too many things, and I'm not envious of enough people - I know enough to get by.

I don't think you can call it stalking when it's just phone calls and letters and emails and knocking on the door.

The truth about life was that nothing ever ended until you died, and even then you just left a whole bunch of unresolved narratives behind you.

[...] falling in love with someone beautiful and intelligent and the rest of it, then feeling like a blank twit put you at something of a disadvantage.