Until now I had been able only to grieve, not mourn. Grief was passive. Grief happened. Mourning, the act of dealing with grief, required attention. - Joan Didion

Until now I had been able only to grieve, not mourn. Grief was passive. Grief happened.

The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself. I suppose that it begins or does not begin in the cradle.

Marriage is memory, marriage is time. Marriage is not only time: it is also, parodoxically, the denial of time.

if someone “chose” you, what does that tell you? Doesn’t it tell you that you were available to be “chosen”? Doesn’t it tell you, in the end, that there are only two people in the world? The one who “chose” you? And the other who didn’t?