But that is how a tragedy like ours or King Lear breaks your heart—by making you believe that the ending might still be happy, until the very last minute.

“What most he should dislike seems pleasant to him; / What like, offensive.”

“Anything can feel like punishment if it’s taught poorly.”

“Who alone suffers suffers most i’ the mind, Leaving free things and happy shows behind: But then the mind much sufferance doth o’er skip, When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.”

“You can justify anything if you do it poetically enough.”

“The thing about Shakespeare is, he’s so eloquent … He speaks the unspeakable. He turns grief and triumph and rapture and rage into words, into something we can understand. He renders the whole mystery of humanity comprehensible.

Imagine having all your own thoughts and feelings tangled up with all the thoughts and feelings of a whole other person. It can be hard, sometimes, to sort out which is which.”

James was in love with Wren, and I was blindly, savagely jealous.

For someone who loved words as much as I did, it was amazing how often they failed me.