"Neither novels or their readers benefit from any attempts to divine whether any facts hide inside a story. Such efforts attack the very idea that made-up stories can matter, which is sort of the foundational assumption of our species."
"Without pain, how could we know joy?' This is an old argument in the field of thinking about suffering and its stupidity and lack of sophistication could be plumbed for centuries but suffice it to say that the existence of broccoli does not, in any way, affect the taste of chocolate."
"And then I crawled into his unmade bed, wrapping myself in his comforter like a cocoon, surrounding myself with his smell. I took out my cannula so I could smell better, breathing him and out, the scent fading even as I lay there, my chest burning until I couldn't distinguish among the pains."
"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."
"Headline?"he asked."'Swing Set Needs Home,'"I said."'Desperately Lonely Swing Set Needs Loving Home,'"he said."'Lonely, Vaguely Pedophilic Swing Set Seeks the Butts of Children,'"I said."
"There is no try. There is only do."