And I suddenly think, as I look across the table at him, that these are the days as they will be. This is the future as we see it. The swerve and the static. The confidence and the doubt.

I gave them all the truth and none of the honesty.

The Irish are great for their tunes, but all their lovesongs are sad and their warsongs happy.

Things in life have no real beginning, though our stories about them always do.

Even if you're going to die, you might as well die pretty.

Part of me really wants to believe that hope is entirely available to all of us. We don't have to embrace it. It would be sentimental and silly to say that we all need it, but it is absolutely available to all of us.

The tunnels of our lives connect, coming to daylight at the oddest moments, and then plunge us into the dark again. We return to the lives of those who have gone before us, a perplexing möbius strip until we come home, eventually, to ourselves.