During chemo, you're more tired than you've ever been. It's like a cloud passing over the sun, and suddenly you're out. But you also find that you're stronger than you've ever been. You're clear. Your mortality is at optimal distance, not up so close that it obscures everything else, but close enough to give you depth perception. Previously, it has taken you weeks, months, or years to discover the meaning of an experience. Now it's instantaneous.
Melissa BankWhenever people say they didn't like the main character of a book, they mean they didn't like the book. The main character has to be a friend? I don't get that.
Melissa BankHe gives me a kiss that barely touches my lips โ it means nothing or everything. After heโs gone, I think, Happy birthday to me. Jack says, โThat was the guy?โ โThat was him.โ Jake shakes his head. โWhat?โ โHeโs not for you,โ he says. I say, โHow do you know?โ but what I mean is, How do you know? โHeโs like Ashley Wilkes,โ he says. โAny one of these guys is Rhett-ier than he is.โ Again, I ask my benignly inflected, โHow do you know?โ โHow do I know?โ he says, tackling me into a bear hug. โHow do I know? I know, thatโs how I know.
Melissa BankIt scares me. But then I get this big feeling, simple but exalted: He's like me, just with different details.
Melissa BankShe said that her father's death had been the hardest thing in her life. "We are all children until our fathers die.
Melissa BankNice,' I say, realizing only afterward that I've mimicked her, a bad habit of mine; I'm like one of those animals that imitates its predators to survive.
Melissa BankWith so much sky and so much river, you couldn't help seeing the big picture. It was what you already knew, but crowding into the subway or rushing to a movie, you only saw it for a second, and close up. Now I took a good long look. I'd always heard you couldn't see stars in Manhattan because of all the lights. But here they all were. Here was my night in shining armor.
Melissa Bank