The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

by Gabrielle Zevin

But me-also-thinks my latter-day reaction speaks to the necessity of encountering stories at precisely the right time in our lives. Remember, Maya: the things we respond to at twenty are not necessarily the same things we will respond to at forty and vice versa. This is true in books and also in life.

She was pretty and smart, which makes her death a tragedy. She was poor and black, which means people say they saw it coming.

The most annoying thing about it is that once a person gives a shit about one thing, he finds he has to start giving a shit about everything.

“We aren’t the things we collect, acquire, read. We are, for as long as we are here, only love. The things we loved. The people we loved. And these, I think these really do live on.”