W. W. Norton & Company

When you understand,” Brandy says, “that what you’re telling is just a story. It isn’t happening anymore. When you realize the story you’re telling is just words, when you can just crumble it up and throw your past in the trashcan,” Brandy says, “then we’ll figure out who you’re going to be.”

There are passages of my book I know by heart.

It’s just that there are other ways to spend your time as a cadaver. Get involved with science. Be an art exhibit. Become part of a tree. Some options for you to think about.

The problem with cadavers is that they look so much like people. It’s the reason most of us prefer a pork chop to a slice of whole suckling pig. It’s the reason we say “pork” and “beef” instead of “pig” and “cow.” Dissection and surgical instruction, like meat-eating, require a carefully maintained set of

There are a thousand ways to live. Just how many do the two of us know?
–ZHANG WEI, The Ancient Ship

In fact, the way to punish someone might be to remove them from their circle of family and friends, isolate them in a cold country, and shatter them with loneliness.

People could walk away towards illusions, they might see something so entrancing they would neglect to turn around. I feared that, like my father, she would no longer remember the reasons for coming home.

Sometimes, I think, you can look at a person and know they are full of words.

Sometimes, I think, you can look at a person and know they are full of words. Maybe the words are withheld due to pain or privacy, or maybe subterfuge. Maybe there are knife-edged words waiting to draw blood.

In fact, he was empty of poetry and afraid of words.