Now we'd known each other for two years, the side of my calf was touching his shins, and his stomach was against my ribs. He said, "I don't think it's end of world to be my girlfriend." I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. It took seven languages to make me; it would be nice if I could have spoken just one.

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

I scowled at the world. And the world scowled back. We were locked in a stare of mutual disgust.

He learned to live with the truth. Not to accept it, but to live with it.

How was it possible to wake up every day and be recognizable to another when so often one was barely recognizable to oneself?

What is literature, really? Boiled down to a single sentence, I'd say it's this: an endless conversation about what it means to be human. And to read literature is to engage in that conversation.

Why are we so addicted to factual knowledge? Why are we so uncomfortable with the unknown? Is it something about the anxiety of our time? Because of course that wasn't always the way. Even now the whole idea of the rational individual has been subject to question and yet we still cling to this idea of factual, rational knowledge being more valuable than whatever its opposite might be.