“Don't you know that I laugh because it is my last defense against tears?”

“Forgetting who you are is so much more complicated than simply forgetting your name. It's also forgetting your dreams. Your aspirations. What makes you happy. What you pray you'll never have to live without. It's meeting yourself for the first time, and not being sure of your first impression.”

“There's an intimacy in listening to somebody's lies, I've always thought--you learn more about someone from the things they wish were true than from the things that actually are.”

“Have you noticed how difficult it is just to get along in the world? If you're no good at all in your job, people treat you badly and eventually you will be unemployed. And if you're a little better than competent, everyone expects miracles from you, every single time. Like most of life, it's a no-win situation. And if you dare to mention it, no matter how creatively you phrase your complaints, you are shunned as a whiner.”

“We think we are being interesting to others when we are being interesting to ourselves.”

“That was what happened to laughter when you caged it. It became unbearably sad. It was worse than crying.”

“Of course reading and thinking are important but, my God, food is important too.”

“Sometimes things come out of your mouth that you regret later on. Or no, not regret. You say something so razor-sharp that the person you say it to carries it around with them for the rest of their life.”