extremely loud & incredibly close

119 was I worried about her, putting all of her life into her life story, no, I was so happy for her, I remembered the feeling she was feeling, the exhilaration of building the world anew, I heard from behind the door the sounds of creation, the letters pressing into the paper, the pages being pulled from the machine, everything being, for once, better than it was and as good as it could be, everything full of meaning, and then one morning this spring, after years of working in solitude.

130 I press her hand against her heart, and then against my heart, or I touch her forefinger to the mirror, or touch it, quickly, against the hotplate, sometimes I wonder if she knows, I wonder in my Nothingest moments if she's testing me, if she types nonsense all day long, or types nothing at all, just to see what I'll do in response, she wants to know if I love her, that's all anyone wants from anyone else, not love itself but the knowledge that love is there, like new batteries in the flashlight in the emergency kit in the hall closet.

232 When I looked at you, my life made sense. Even the bad things made sense. They were necessary to make you possible.

words by: Jonathan Safran Foer