She refused to think of Neil, brave and quiet, whose reward for a heroic rescue was to be slowly devoured by strange cave balloons.

Was life like that? You could look ahead to the future or back to the past, but the present moved too quickly to absorb.

....there is a difference between hearing and listening. You can't always help what you hear. But you can control what holds your interest, what you choose to dwell on.

Drake. He liked dangerous pies." "Why did he join you?" "Who would eat pie that could take over your life? Why risk it?" "Focus. Why did he join you?" "Say no to death pies. Another good motto. I'm getting a headache." p. 432

Please," Kendra said. "Think of all the lives that will be destroyed." "I have," Mark said. "Believe me, darling, I grasp all aspects of this, I really do. But how much has the public I'm protecting worried about me? My sanity, my happiness, my right to find peace?" "They made no promises," Bracken said. "They are not preventing the end of the world. Those who know about your sacrifice appreciate you immeasurably. Your life may not be fair, but it is absolutely necessary.

Try as we might to postpone them, days of reckoning inevitably arrive.

Most pleasures are best as a seasoning, not the main course. p. 374