Then I turned the page and at the top it said THINGS I MISS ABOUT M and there was a list of 15 things, and the first was THE WAY HE HOLDS THINGS. I did not understand how you can miss the way somebody holds things.

It is impossible to distrust one's writing without awakening a deeper distrust in oneself.

I'm very interested in structure, how multiple stories are assembled in different ways; that is what memory does as well.

... as a rule of thumb, whenever there appears a plural, correct for a singular. Should I ever let slip a royal WE, put me out of my misery with a swift blow to the head.

At the end, all that's left of you are your possessions. Perhaps that's why I've never been able to throw anything away. Perhaps that's why I hoarded the world: with the hope that when I died, the sum total of my things would suggest a life larger than the one I lived.

All I want is not to die on a day when I went unseen.

To me, this is the singular privilege of reading literature: we are allowed to step into another's life.