"The air is like being wanted, we say, and they nod approvingly. The air is like getting older, they say, and they touch our arms gently."

"She felt some measure of relief knowing that in the very least, on the open road she would have some time to think."

"There has not been a beautiful death in the history of mankind."

"When we pass by another person without telling them we love them it’s cruel and wrong and we all know this."

"She pulls away, pats me on the shoulder with three mini-pats, like those used to pet reptiles."

"Nothing again. No one is listening. No one is waiting to hear the kicking of a man above. It is unexpected. You have no ears for someone like me."

"The raising of a child is the building of a cathedral. You can't cut corners."

"You’re like part human, part rainbow."

"But that's one lifetime." Yeah." But while doing that one I'd want to be able to have done other stuff. Whole other lives- the one where I sail-" I know, on a boat you made yourself."

"(...) my problem with paper is that all communication dies with it. It holds no possibility of continuity."

"No. There is no balance, and no retribution, and no rules. The rules and balances you blather about are hopeful creations of a man fearing death."

"Hello Frances, I have just been to health class, and I was wondering how your feminine parts were developing."

"Then he got more books. He saved all the books."

"This was a new skill she'd acquired, the ability to look, to the outside world, utterly serene and even cheerful, while, in her skull, all was chaos."

"We were fools and now we were driving to our deaths in a rental car. Janet Jackson was tinkling from the speakers, asking what we had done for her as of late"

"Here is a drawing of a stapler:"

"It only takes one person, one small act of stepping from the dark to the light."

"First of all, I know it’s all people like you. And that’s what’s so scary. Individually you don’t know what you’re doing collectively."

"My voice and movements are restricted by the things I own."

"I lost someone very close to me and afterward I believed I could have saved him had I been a better friend to him. But everyone disappears, no matter who loves them."

"If you think I'm annoying and preachy now, you should have known me in grade school."

"Again the greatest use of a human was to be useful. Not to consume, not to watch, but to do something for someone else that improved their life, even for a few minutes."

"Your life has been lived a hundred times. A thousand times. It's not all that great, really. Don't take it so seriously. Don't handle it so delicately."

"It was not knowing that was the seed of madness, loneliness, suspicion, fear."