Doug Smith

“The worst burden in life is what others know about us. But maybe there is one burden even worse than this. It happens when they don't know about us, it is what they think about us when, in silence, they force us to be what they expect us to be. Even worse is how we become it and I, chonorroeja, have become it.”
― Colum McCann, Zoli

“There are those of us who haven't yet told our stories, or refuse to tell them, and so we become them: we hide away inside the memory until we can no longer stand the shell or the shock - perhaps I must tell it before it is forgotten or becomes like everything else, something else.”
― Colum McCann, Zoli

“You know, one of the tragedies of real life is that there is no background music.”
― Annie Proulx

“Let this be a lesson to us all, said the preacher. You will be walking someday in the dark and the truth will come shining through, and behind you will be a life that you never want to see again.”
― Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin