Can I ask you something?" you said. "How did you ever survive that scandal?" She said, "I refused to be shamed." "How did you do that?" you asked. … - Gabrielle Zevin

You can't avoid orphan stories, child. Every story is an orphan story. We are all orphaned sooner or later.

The words you can't find, you borrow.
We read to know we're not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are not alone.
My life is in these books, he wants to tell her. Read these and know my heart.
We are not quite novels.
The analogy he is looking for is almost there.
We are not quite short stories. At this point, his life is seeming closest to that.
In the end, we are collected works.

People like what they like, and that's the great and terrible thing.