My inventory of people who can save me is down to just me.

And the more she could imagine this island, the less she liked the real world. The more she could imagine the people, the less she liked any real people.

We want you, not your money. As long as you're at fight club, you're not how much money you've got in the bank. You're not your job. You're not your family, and you're not who you tell yourself. You're not your name. You're not your problems. You're not your age. You are not your hopes. You will not be saved. We are all going to die, someday.

In good old Colonial Dunsboro, masochism is a valuable job skill. It is in most jobs.

What you have to consider is the possibility that God doesn't like you. Could be, God hates us. This is not the worst thing that could happen.

Because everything up to now is a story and everything after now is a story.

Marla tells me how in the wild you don't see old animals because as soon as they age, animals die. If they get sick or slow down, something stronger kills them. Animals aren't meant to get old. Marla lies down on her bed and undoes the tie on her bathrobe, and says our culture has made death something wrong. Old animals should be an unnatural exception. Freaks.