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by Jenny Offill

The problem with assortative mating, she said, is that it feels perfectly correct when you do it. Like a key fitting into a lock and opening a door. The question being: Is this really the room you want to spend your life in?

Why didn’t I have more kids so I could have more chances?

My # 1 fear is the acceleration of days. No such thing supposedly, but I swear I can feel it.

Young person worry: What if nothing I do matters? Old person worry: What if everything I do does?

A few days later, I yelled at him for losing his new lunch box, and he turned to me and said, Are you sure you’re my mother? Sometimes you don’t seem like a good enough person. He was just a kid, so I let it go. And now, years later, I probably only think of it, I don’t know, once or twice a day.

His point is that eventually all those who are unnerved by what is falling away will be gone, and after that, there won’t be any more talk of what has been lost, only of what has been gained. But wait, that sounds bad to me. Doesn’t that mean if we end up somewhere we don’t want to be, we can’t retrace our steps?

“These people long for immortality but can’t wait ten minutes for a cup of coffee,” she says.

Q: What is the philosophy of late capitalism? A: Two hikers see a hungry bear on the trail ahead of them. One of them takes out his running shoes and puts them on. “You can’t outrun a bear,” the other whispers. “I just have to outrun you,” he says.

Breathing in, I know that I am of the nature to grow old. Breathing out, I know that I cannot escape old age. Breathing in, I know that I am of the nature to get sick. Breathing out, I know that I cannot escape sickness. Breathing in, I know that I am of the nature to die. Breathing out, I know that I cannot escape dying. Breathing in, I know that one day I will have to let go of everything and everyone I love. Breathing out, I know there is no way to bring them along. Aw, c’mon, man. Everything and everyone I love? Is there one for beginners maybe?

My mother told me once that each thing, each being, has two names. One is the name by which it is known in this world and the other is a secret name that it keeps hidden. But if you call it by this name it cannot help but respond. This is the name by which the creature was known in the Garden of Eden.

God blesses me anyway.

Your people have finally fallen into history, he said. The rest of us are already here.

There is a period after every disaster in which people wander around trying to figure out if it is truly a disaster. Disaster psychologists use the term “milling” to describe most people’s default actions when they find themselves in a frightening new situation.

A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, “You are mad, you are not like us.”

Gods suppressed become devils.

“No set line between lost and not lost,”

You can last three hours without shelter, three days without water, three weeks without food, three months without hope,

Funny how when you’re married all you want is to be anonymous to each other again, but when you’re anonymous all you want is to be married and reading together in bed.

They say when you’re lonely you start to lose words.

But you can expect something and still get the breath knocked out of you by it.

And then it is another day and another and another, but I will not go on about this because no doubt you too have experienced time.

Do not believe that because you are a revolutionary you must feel sad.

The core delusion is that I am here and you are there.