- "What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls? When you skateboarded down the street at night you could hear everyone's heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like sonar. One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone's hearts would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have menstrual periods at the same time, which I know about, but don't really want to know about. That would be so weird, except that the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn't have had time to match up their heartbeats yet. And at the finish line at the end of the New York City Marathon it would sound like war." pg1
- "I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love." pg76
- "The letter was destoryed, but its final paragraph is inside of me. She wrote, _I wish I could be a girl again, with the chance to live my life again. I have suffered so much more than I needed to. And the joys I have felt haven't always been joyous. I could have lived differently. When I was your age, my grandfather bought me a ruby bracelet. It was too big for me and would slide up and down my arm. It was almost a necklace. He later told me that he had asked the jeweler to make it that way. Its size was supposed to to be a symbol of his love. More rubies, more love. But I could not wear it comfortably. I could not wear it at all. So here is the point of everything I have been trying to say. If I were to give a bracelet to you, now, I would measure your wrist twice._" pg78
- "I'm God!" "You're an atheist." "I don't exist!" pg86
- "Humans are the only animals that blushes, laughs, has religion, wages war, and kisses with lips. So in a way, the more you kiss with lips, the more human you are." "And the more you wage war?" Then I was the silent one. pg99
- She agreed to wait outside, but only if I held a ball of yarn, which went under the bathroom door and was connected to the scarf she was knitting. Every few seconds she would give it a tug, and I had to tug back - undoing what she'd just done - so that she could know I was okay. pg100
- Everything pg113-117
- "Succotash my cocker spaniel, you fudging crevasse-hole dipshiitake!" pg 145
- "Did you know that in the last 3,500 years there have been only 230 years of peace throughout the civilized world." pg161
- "We spent our days trying to help each other help each other. I would get his slippers. He would make my tea. I would turn up the heat so he could turn up the air conditioner so I Could turn up the heat. His hands didn't lose their roughness." pg176
- "I went to the guest room and pretended to write. I hit the space bar again and again and again. My life story was spaces." pg176
- "When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calendar that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from a chimney ended. How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of the table." pg180
jun 4 2011 ∞
jul 14 2011 +