I've always like the time before dawn because there's no one around to remind me who I'm supposed to be, so it's easier to remember who I am.

She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful and life was so short.

Anyone can slay a dragon, he told me, but try waking up every morning and loving the world all over again. That's what takes a real hero.

We lay there and looked up at the night sky and she told me about stars called blue squares and red swirls and I told her I'd never heard of them. Of course not, she said, the really important stuff they never tell you. You have to imagine it on your own.

I hope someday you see this is all life wants: for you to be your own kind of beautiful & not the kind that makes you forget who you are.

We went to a church that had missionaries who'd come back once a year from Fiji & give talks. I remember one of them saying it was very hard work telling people they were going to lose their everlasting souls if they didn't shape up. I pictured people sitting on the beach listening to this sweaty man all dressed in black telling them they were going to burn in hell & them thinking this was good fun, these scary stories this guy was telling them & afterwards, they'd all go home & eat mango & fish & they'd play Monopoly & laugh & laugh & they'd go to bed & wake up the next day & do it all again.

Time stands still best in moments that look suspiciously like ordinary life.