13.5 Mrs. Wolfe asks whether Mr. Iqbal expects her Susan to undertake compulsory headstands. 13.6 Mr. Iqbal infers that, considering Susan's academic performance and weight problems, a headstand regime might be desirable.

The belief that consciousness extends beyond death is surely to put more belief in the permanence of self, not less. That seems to me a comfort that you're allowing yourself.

I just realized quite early on that I'm not going to be the type who can write a novel every two years. I think you need to feel an urgency about the act. Otherwise, when you read it, you feel no urgency, either. So I don't write unless I really feel I need to, and that's a luxury.

Oh, I know that. You know me, baby, I cannot be broken. Takes a giant to snap me in half.

Sometimes you get a flash of what you look like to other people.

He traced the genealogy of the feeling.

For me, George Saunders novel [Lincoln in the Bardo] is about a problem of pain.