Junot Díaz

“She was the kind of girlfriend God gives you young, so you'll know loss the rest of your life.”

“You can't regret the life you didn't lead.”

“If you didn't grow up like I did then you don't know, and if you don't know it's probably better you don't judge.”

“Our relationship wasn't the sun, the moon, the stars, but it wasn't bullshit, either.”

“Dude, you don't want to be dead. Take it from me. No-pussy is bad. But dead is like no-pussy times ten.”

“Here at last is her smile: burn it into your memory; you won't see it often.”

“He whistles. Que viva Colombia. Hands you back the Book. You really should write the cheater's guide to love. You think? I do. It takes a while. You see the tall girl. You go to more doctors...”

“Success, after all, loves a witness, but failure can't exist without one.”

“Trauma is a time traveller, an ouroboros that reaches back and devours everything that came before.”

“I certainly couldn't have survived my childhood without books. All that deprivation and pain--abuse, broken home, a runaway sister, a brother with cancer--the books allowed me to withstand....”