Our memory fragments don't have any coherence until they're imagined in words. Time is a property of language, of syntax, and tense.

Time is not outside us, but inside. Only we live with past, present, and future, and the present is too brief to experience anyway; it is retained afterward and then it is either codified or it slips into amnesia.

Writing fiction is like remembering what never happened.

Every sickness has an alien quality, a feeling of invasion and loss of control that is evident in the language we use about it.

We chart delusions through collective agreement.

Widowers marry again because it makes their lives easier. Widows often don't, because it makes their lives harder. [p. 61]

Reading is a private pursuit; one that takes place behind closed doors.