...They cannot escape their history any more than you yourself can lose your shadow.

It's easy to confuse a woman for a philosophy

I guess I've always written more from the opposite perspective, that kind of existentialist perspective which argues that existence precedes essence. And there really isn't anything essential in there - you're the product of your actions, which can always change. And they retrospectively make you one way or another.

When people use that stream of consciousness, it's kind of just a term they use for anything that looks slightly different on the page.

Life’s not a video game, Felix- there aren’t a certain number of points that send you to the next level. There isn’t actually any next level. The bad news is that everybody dies at the end. Game Over.

Then he gave her a kiss on the forehead that felt like a baptism and she wept like a baby.

This is what a woman is: unadorned, after children and work and age, and experience-these are the marks of living.