The kind of people who spend their lives as permanent guests on a futon are not the kind of people you want to know. - Gabrielle Zevin

But me-also-thinks my latter-day reaction speaks to the necessity of encountering stories at precisely the right time in our lives. Remember, Maya: the things we respond to at twenty are not necessarily the same things we will respond to at forty and vice versa. This is true in books and also in life.

It is lucky, she thinks, that we don't feel all the love inside us every moment. We couldn't breathe or walk or eat. It is lucky that it just flares up every now and again then resolves itself into a manageable dormancy.

When you have children, you'll never be able to worry about a friend as much again," Dov said.