" The books somehow made him smaller, not larger, as if they were whispering, “What a little thing a single human life is, with all its busy, ephemeral, pointless projects.” All ruins say this, yet we strangely persist in pretending that books are not ruins, not broken columns.

— 

James Wood in Shelf Life: Packing up my father-in-law’s library

Y’all, if (when) I die, please don’t let James Wood write about my personal history and library for The New Yorker.