“Well, this might sound stupid but I think he was my best friend. Like the other half of me. I m so scared something might have happened to him when he went back. I miss him so much sometimes I look at windows and I want to just walk right through them -- like press myself through the glass. I want their sharp edges to fragment me.”
“The world went on. People left and people died and people went to memorial services and put orange blocks of cheese into their purses. People confessed to you that they were hungry all the time. And then you got up in the morning and pretended that none of it had happened.”
“That night, before bed, he goes first to Willem s side of the closet, which he has still not emptied. Here are Willem s shirts on their hangers, and his sweaters on their shelves, and his shoes lined up beneath. He takes down the shirt he needs, a burgundy plaid woven through with threads of yellow, which Willem used to wear around the house in the springtime, and shrugs it on over his head. But instead of putting his arms through its sleeves, he ties the sleeves in front of him, which makes the shirt look like a straitjacket, but which he can pretend—if he concentrates—are Willem s arms in an embrace around him. He climbs into bed. This ritual embarrasses and shames him, but he only does it when he really needs it, and tonight he really needs it.”
“Listen, said Beverly. Let me tell you something. There is no Very Friendly Animal Center. That cat is long gone.”
“The idea that a loss will get easier as time passes, is complete bullshit. It doesn’t get easier; you just learn to function while balancing the large burden on your shoulders.”
“When I go out by the gateway, taking the road I drove along that first time I picked up Lotte for the ball, how very different it all is! It is all over, all of it! There is not a hint of the world that once was, not one bulse-beat of those past emotions. I feel like a ghost returning to the burnt-out ruins of the castle he built in his prime as a prince, which he adorned with magnificent splendours and then, on his deathbed, but full of hope, left to his beloved son”
“Then you know. You know what it s like to love someone like you love yourself and lose them.”
“The rarer they get, the fewer meanings animals can have. Eventually rarity is all they are made of. The condor is an icon of extinction. There s little else to it now but being the last of its kind. And in this lies the diminution of the world. How can you love something, how can you fight to protect it, if all it means is loss?”
“Miłość to za skromne słowo, nie uważa pan? Mam przyjaciółkę w Fern Tree, która uczy gry na fortepianie. Ona jest bardzo muzykalna, a mnie słoń na ucho nadepnął. Ale pewnego dnia ta przyjaciółka powiedziała mi, że każdy pokój ma swoją nutę. Trzeba ją tylko znaleźć. Zaczęła przebierać palcami po klawiszach, tam i z powrotem, i nagle jedna nuta powróciła do nas, po prostu obiła się od ścian, uniosła nad podłogą i wypełniła cały pokój takim jakimś doskonałym pomrukiem. Pięknym dźwiękiem. Było to tak, jak gdyby rzucił pan śliwkę, a ona wróciła by do pana całym sadem. Nie uwierzyłby pan w to, panie Evans. To takie dwie kompletnie różne rzeczy, nuta i pokój, a jakoś się znalazły. Ten dźwięk brzmiał… dobrze. Nie mówię jak idiotka? Czy sądzi pan, że właśnie to mamy na myśli, mówiąc o miłości? Taką nutę, która do nas powraca? Która znajduje pana nawet wtedy, kiedy nie chce pan zostać odnaleziony? Że pewnego dnia znajduje pan kogoś, a potem wszystko czym ten człowiek jest, powraca do pana jakimś dziwnym pomrukiem? Który pasuje. Jest piękny. Nie potrafię dobrze wytłumaczyć, o co mi chodzi, prawda? Nie jestem zbyt elokwentna. Ale tacy właśnie byliśmy, Jack i ja. Właściwie się nie znaliśmy. Nie wiem, czy wszystko w nim mi się podobało. Pewnie miał w sobie coś, co mnie irytowało. Ale ja byłam tym pokojem, a on tą nutą, i teraz Jacka nie ma. I wszędzie panuje cisza.”
“de eindigheid van de dingen de willekeur-- het voortdurend breken en lijmen van het hart verlangend zoeken soms vinden altijd weer verliezen. waartoe, toch?”
“Letting her go wasn t a choice because he would never let her go; she was taken away from him.”
“We put our lives on hold for people who so easily forget about us.”
“With time one ages, and with age one comes closer to their end. With time one builds a family, a house, a name and with age one learns to live without them.”
“I still wonder what made him leave. Were they my demons or his own?”
“There were many tears, many unsure times, many troubled moments. The fun memories were only a few, but even so, those memories will shine bright like stardust, and continue to shine on in my heart.”
“Because Dad told you he d be here forever. Because I thought forever was like Mars -- far away.”
“Silence then, and the scent of apple trees, and the nightmare sense of grief that comes when a man wakes again to feel a loss he has forgotten in sleep.”