When I was with Yoav, everything in me that had been sitting stood up. He had a way of looking at me with a kind of unabashed directness that made me shiver. It's something amazing to feel that for the first time someone is seeing you as you really are, not as they wish you, or you wish yourself, to be.

...The plural of elf is elves! What a language! What a world!

I smiled back, the importance of manners, my mother always said, is inversely related to how inclined one is to use them, or, in other words, sometimes politeness is all that stands between oneself and madness.

It's one of those unforgettable moments that happen as a child, when you discover that all along the world has been betraying you.

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

When will you learn that there isn't a word for everything?

In life we sit at the table and refuse to eat, and in death we are eternally hungry.