It's the shadow on every kiss and every dollar, that it might not be there tomorrow. - Alexander Chee

A novel, should it survive, protects what a missile can't.

You are never lost in sorrow, it seems to me, ever. You do know the way. In fact, you don't think there's any other. Sorrow seemed to me to be more like a road would through life, through the days of your life, like the old Roman ruins near the Tuileries or the rue d'Enfer — underneath this life, but never really apart from it.

And the gods did not kill for hubris-for hubris, they let you live long enough to learn.