I remember one morning getting up at dawn. There was such a sense of possibility. You know, that feeling. And I... I remember thinking to myself: So … - Michael Cunningham

It’s better, really, to go out in a blaze. That’s why we love Marilyn, and James Dean. We love the ones who walk right into the fire.

She will never mention to Leonard that she'd planned on fleeing, even for a few hours. As if he were the one in need of care and comfort — as if he were the one in danger.

Which is probably one of the reasons those of us who love contemporary fiction love it as we do. We’re alone with it. It arrives without references, without credentials we can trust. Givers of prizes (not to mention critics) do the best they can, but they may — they probably will — be scoffed at by their children’s children. We, the living readers, whether or not we’re members of juries, decide, all on our own, if we suspect ourselves to be in the presence of greatness. We’re compelled to let future generations make the more final decisions, which will, in all likelihood, seem to them so clear as to produce a sense of bafflement over what was valued by their ancestors; what was garlanded and paraded, what carried to the temple on the shoulders of the wise.