Lydia Davis:

When you're very young, you're usually happy -- at least you're ready to be. You get older and see things more clearly and there's less to be happy about.

Lisa Moore:

It has always been this way. Finite. But at forty-five you realize it.

Davis:

When you slide by it all, so fast, you think you won't ever have to get bogged down in it again -- the traffic, the neighborhoods, the stores, waiting in lines. We're really speeding now. The ride is smooth. Pretty quiet. Just a little squeaking from some metal part in the car that's jiggling. We're all jiggling a little.

David Foster Wallace:

The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness -- awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us. It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive, day in and day out.

Davis:

My sister came to visit, one time -- I'm thinking of her bags leaning in a group against my furniture. I was nearly paralyzed, not knowing what to do with her or even without her -- I didn't want to leave her alone in a room. I wasn't used to having company, or at least I wasn't used to having her there. After a while the panicky feeling passed, maybe just because time passed.

Davis:

I look across the road here at how still the cows stand, a lot of the time.

Virginie Tisseau:

We carve life into spaces and name them as if they were animals. As if they were people ... as if we owned them.

This is not my home.