No order, no pattern, just chaos. Lots of little universes separated by invisible screens . . .

It never ceased to amaze me how she just had the facts always, in her head. It occured to me that if, or when, she died, a whole load of facts, a body of knowledge, might disappear without a trace.

The sharp, superficial pain at being spoken to unkindly had obscured the deeper pain, which had not yet turned into something hard and heavy.

Mizuko loved reading the dictionary. She liked it when there were multiple meanings for words and when opposite meanings could be contained.

Waking in the morning, I had to remember grief all over again. It was sunny, a white winter sun, and that made me sad.

Well, then, what's the plan now? You can't stay here forever.'My plan was indeed to stay there forever.

My ability to make up lies on the spot chills me as much as it saves me.

I felt the nauseous shiver in my stomach—everything from rage to empathy to morning sickness—that I had grown used to and now thought of as being love.

The messages must be stuck somewhere in the tube of light underneath the ocean that connects London and New York.

Email is the scourge of our age, ' said Silvia. 'Email and cancer.

I was on the sidewalk, buffering, wondering if it was okay to follow people in real life.

At times, I have been convinced that books hold all the material of life--at least all the stuff that fits between an A and a Z.

Born from different parents, they were siblings in death, destroyed by the same hand.

We needs must love the highest when we see it.

I'm more verbal and not as private as I was as a kid.

Being liberated means reading what you want to read, and fantasizing about what you want to fantasize about.

Wicked men obey out of fear. good men, out of love

Ideas matter. Legislative proposals matter. Slick campaigns and dazzling speeches can work for a while, but the magic always wears off.

The world is not a machine. Everything in it is force, life, thought.

When a husband says, "I run things in my home" he may mean the washing machine, the dishwasher and the vacuum cleaner.

I think a double bass for me would be too much effort. But the cello, you're really engaged and the sound is kind of right here. So, it feels like being merged, married to an instrument.