"And then the line was quite but not dead. I almost felt like he was there in my room with me, but in a way it was better, like I was not in my room and he was not in his, but instead we were together in some invisible and tenuous third space that could only be visited on the phone."
"The marks humans leave are too often scars."
"Witness also that when we talk about literature, we do so in the present tense. When we speak of the dead, we are not so kind."
"My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations."
"It's a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the power to do its killing."
"I don't care if the New York Times writes an obituary for me. I just want you to write one. ... You say you're not special because the world doesn't know about you, but that's an insult to me. I know about you."