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

I finally understood that no matter what I did, or who I found, I-he-none of us-would ever be able to win over the memories she had of Dad, memories that soothed her even while they made her sad, because she'd built a world out of them she knew how to survive on even if no one else could.

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

Part of me is made of glass, and also, I love you.

He held my hand and told me a story about when he was six and threw a rock at a kid's head who was bullying his brother, and how after that no one had bothered either of them again. 'You have to stick up for yourself,' he told me. 'But it's bad to throw rocks,' I said. 'I know. You're smarter than me. You'll find something better than rocks.

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

We met each other when we were young, before we knew enough about disappointment, and once we did we found we reminded each other of it.