No matter what, I want to continue living with the awareness that I will die. Without that, I am not alive.

Sometimes people put up walls, not to keep others out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.

I really believe that no matter how old people get, they tend to change in certain ways depending on how people treat them - they change their colors.

With a cold"--she spoke evenly, lowering her eyes a little--"now is the hardest time. Maybe even harder than dying. But this is probably as bad as it can get. You might come to fear the next time you get a cold; it will be as bad as this, but if you just hold steady, it won't be. For the rest of your life. That's how it works. You could take the negative view and live in fear: Will it happen again? But it won't hurt so much if you just accept it as a part of life." With that she looked up at me, smiling.

it'll be this kind of deep blue”she said. “The kind of color that somehow sucks your eyes and your ears and all your words —the color of a completely closed-in night

That's the advantage of insomnia. People who go to be early always complain that the night is too short, but for those of us who stay up all night, it can feel as long as a lifetime. You get a lot done

Everything that had happened was shockingly beautiful, enough to make you crazy.