"Could I tell them I was sorry their loved one was dead, when he’d tried to kill me? There was no rule of etiquette for this; even my grandmother would have been stymied."

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There is a strange taboo in our society against ending something merely because it is not pleasant-- life, love, a conversation, you name it, the etiquette is that you must begin in ignorance & persevere in the face of knowledge, & though I naturally believe that this is profoundly wrong it's not nice to go around constantly offending people.

— Helen DeWitt