I wish there was someone to hold me, you know? Is that pathetic?” “You’re needy,” I said. “Sounds frustrating.”
. . .
“I wanted to be an artist, but I had no talent,” I told her. “Do you really need talent?” That might have been the smartest thing Reva ever said to me.
. . .
“The moment we start making generalizations, we give up our right to self-govern.
. . .
I took the garbage out into the hallway and threw it down the trash chute. Having a trash chute was one of my favorite things about my building. It made me feel important, like I was participating in the world. My trash mixed with the trash of others. The things I touched touched things other people had touched. I was contributing. I was connecting.
. . .
Rejection, I have found, can be the only antidote to delusion.
. . .
Talking to Reva about misery was insufferable. “Look on the bright side,” was what she wanted everyone to do. But at least she cared.
. . .
If you let your mind drift, you’d find you can adapt quite easily to the deviated reality. But the instinct for self-correction is powerful. Oh, is it powerful.
. . .
He struck me as a reptilian, small-hearted being, someone placed on the planet to strike a chord with similar people, people who distracted themselves with money and conversation rather than sink their hands and teeth into the world around them. Shallow, I guess. But there were worse people on this Earth.
. . .
There was majesty and grace in the pace of the swaying branches of the willows. There was kindness. Pain is not the only touchstone for growth, I said to myself.
