“He thought there must be a place, like a dead-letter office, where everyone's longing went, yearning that was sent out, day after day. He thought it must collect somewhere, in a dank basement room, the mass of it rising and rising like water, and with no end in sight.”

“He thought there must be a place, like a dead-letter office, where everyone's longing went, yearning that was sent out, day after day. He thought it must collect somewhere, in a dank basement room, the mass of it rising and rising like water, and with no end in sight.”

“She could never be part of so much of his turbulent history, his youthful adventure, where life had been deeply felt.”

“He wondered if somewhere far off, defying the laws of science, Mitch's two screams were still echoing, if those vibrations had traveled into space, if they moved on and on like rays in a light-year. There might be other forms of life who were receiving the noise and trying to interpret the tones.”

“...you have to learn where your pain is. You have to burrow down and find the wound, and if the burden of it is too terrible to shoulder, you have to shout it out; you have to shout for help... And then finally, the way through grief is grieving.”

“She read books quickly and compulsively, paperback after paperback, as if she might drift away without the anchor of the printed page.”

“It is books that are a key to the wide world; if you can't do anything else, read all that you can.”

“Emma, Emma, Emma," I said, wishing I could somehow teach her to take the smaller blows of life in her stride.”

“Sometimes I couldn't figure it out, what all the living was for.”

“I didn't know how to tell him that I hadn't lost the instinct to survive and yet at the same time I didn't feel much need for self-preservation, that somehow there was a distinction between the two.”

“I have given up on speech with the Rev; there is no use explaining that you have to learn where your pain is. You have to burrow down and find the wound, and if the burden of it is too terrible to shoulder you have to shout it out; you have to shout for help. My trust, even down in that dark place I carry, is that some person will come running. And then finally the way through grief is grieving.”

“...the other's self, that enormous hulking thing each possessed, that a self of course is not inconsequential. p124”