Dan Chaon said this quote

You want a child because it is a link in the bridge that you are building between the past and the future, a cantilever that holds you, so that you are not alone.

~ Dan Chaon

He had built his own future brick by brick around himself but there were no doors or windows, at least that was the way it seemed at the time he had thought to himself, I am locked in, it was like one of those ghost stories where you wake up and you are sealed in a coffin.

~ Dan Chaon

This is one of those things that you can never explain to anyone, that's what I want to explain - one of those free-association moments with connections that dissolve when you start to try to put them into words.

~ Dan Chaon

I guess I always thought it would be bigger, when a terrible thing happened. Didn't you think so? Doesn't it seem like houses ought to be caving in, and lightning and thunder, and people tearing their hair in the street? I never - I never thought it would be this small, did you?

~ Dan Chaon