The happiness at getting what you want is not usually commensurate with the worry leading up to it.

But it was smell that carried memory.

She knew that when she got old it would be more fun to look back on a life of romance and adventure than a life of quiet habits. But looking back was easy. It was the doing that was painful. There were plenty of things she would like to look back on but wasn't willing to risk.

It took the real thing to show you the size of your delusions.

She'd cried over a broken heart before. She knew what that felt like, and it didn't feel like this. Her heart felt not so much broken as just ... empty. It felt like she was an outline empty in the middle. The outline cried senselessly for the absent middle. The past cried for the present that was nothing.

Sometimes he felt sure that the key to happiness was a poor memory.

Hey," he said. "It's someday." He said the last word in Greek.