End of Story

by A.J. Finn

“People your age—young people, I mean—you treat your lives like galleries, for public display, open to all. My life is no gallery. It’s a vault, a black box, and—I’m sorry I can’t put this more elegantly—it’s nobody’s damn business.”

“I think it’s good to learn to live with fear,” he said. “Fear and failure. And the unknown.”

“‘A woman who doesn’t lie,’” she replies, “‘is a woman without imagination and without sympathy.’”

“Life is hard. After all, it kills you.”