And he isn't crying for her, not for his grandma, he's crying for himself: that he: too, is going to die one day. And before that his friends wil die, and the friends of his friends, and, as time passes, the children of his friends, and, if his fate is truly bitter, his own children. (58)

The unique thing that literature provides is to be able to step so fully into another situation and condition.

If the book is a mystery to its author as she's writing, inevitably it's going to be a mystery to the reader as he or she reads it.

lonely people are always up in the middle of the night.

...after all, who isn't a survivor from the wreck of childhood?

I read differently now, more painstakingly, knowing I am probably revisiting the books I love for the last time. (245)

So many words get lost. They leave the mouthand lose their courage, wandering aimlessly until they are swept into the gutter like dead leaves. On rainy days you can hear their chorus rushing past.