"Sometimes I think: I am older than this tree, older than this bench, older than the rain. And yet. I'm not older than the rain. It's been falling for years and after I go it will keep on falling."

“When I got older I decided I wanted to be a real writer. I tried to write about real things. I wanted to describe the world, because to live in an undescribed world was too lonely.”

“The words of our childhood became strangers to us- we couldn't use them in the same way and so we chose not to use them at all. Life demanded a new language.”

“The little boy I watched throwing pebbles into the empty fountain You could tell that he had too much wisdom for his age. Probably he believed that he wasn't made for this world. I wanted to say to him: If not you, who?”

“Even after the only person whose opinion I cared about left on a boat for America, I continued to fill pages with her name.”

“These things were lost to oblivion like so much about so many who are born and die without anyone ever taking the time to write it all down.”

“When I got up again, I'd shed the only part of me that had ever thought I'd find words for even the smallest bit of life.”