A place is not really a place without a bookstore. - Gabrielle Zevin

I've thought a lot about it. The truth is, sometimes too much can happen in a relationship, and then there's nothing anyone can do or say. It's broken.

Simon feared that marriage licensing could be suspended without warning, and that cops, lawyers, homophobic protesters might show up to spoil everything. "Torschlusspanik," Simon said. "Okay," Sam said. "I'll bite." "Don't encourage him," Ant said. "What's Torschlusspanik?" Sam said. "It means 'gate-shut panic,' " Simon said. "It's the fear that time is running out and that you're going to miss an opportunity. Literally, the gate is closing, and you'll never get in." "That's me," Sam said. "I have that constantly.

I myself am mixed race — my mother is Korean and my father is an American Jew — so I've always felt other. But I think what's a little bit amazing about books, again, is the way in which they can sort of transcend that to an extent. And I also wanted the world as I see it — and the world as I see it is a world that is increasingly [filled] with people [of] different ethnicities.