“I watched the sheets breathe when she breathed, like how Dad used to say that trees inhale when people exhale, because I was too young to understand the truth about biological processes.”

I thought for a minute, and then I got heavy, heavy boots.

Everything I did, I did because I thought it was the correct thing to do, I am not a hero, it is true, But I am not a bad person, either.

He promised us that everything would be okay. I was a child, but I knew that everything would not be okay. That did not make my father a liar. It made him my father.

Am I such a bad person for dreaming of a world that ends when I do? I don’t mean the world ending with respect to me, but every set of eyes closing with mine.

She let out a laugh, and then she put her hand over her mouth, like she was angry at herself for forgetting her sadness.

It is not a thing that you can imagine. It only is. After that, there can be no imagining.

The French, who love their dogs, sometimes eat their horses. The Spanish, who love their horses, sometimes eat their cows. The Indians, who love their cows, sometimes eat their dogs.

Tomorrow was over the horizon, and would take an entire day to reach.

I shook my tambourine the whole time, because it helped me remember that even though I was going through different neighborhoods, I was still me.

We are not long-term beings. Not heroes of romances in many volumes. For one gesture, for one word alone, we shall make the effort. We openly admit: our creations will be temporary. We shall have this as our aim: a gesture.

Food serves two parallel purposes: it nourishes and it helps you remember. Eating and storytelling are inseparable-the saltwater is also tears; the honey not only tastes sweet, but makes us think of sweetness; the matzo is the bread of our affliction.

She was with me. She did all of those things and so many more, things I would never tell anyone, and she never even loved me. Now that’s love.

I tried the key in all the doors, even though he said he didn’t recognize it. It’s not that I didn’t trust him, becuase I did. It’s that at the end of my search I wanted to be able to say: I don’t know how I could have tried harder.

Just to be a functioning adult in the world, we develop all of these layers of protection. When we see homeless people, we don’t cry, even though homeless people probably deserve our tears – you know, it’s a horrible thing.

Memory was supposed to fill the time, but it made time a hole to be filled. Each second was two hundred yards, to be walked, crawled. You couldn’t see the next hour, it was so far in the distance. Tomorrow was over the horizon, and would take an entire day to reach.

I wasn’t having second thoughts, but I was having thoughts.