I guess it's a choice we make," she said. "What's a choice?" I asked. And she said, "How much of the world we let in.

When is a night over? Is it the start of sunrise or the end of it? Is it when you finally go to sleep or simply realize that you have to? When the club closes or when you everyone leaves? "It's over when you decide it's over," she says. "When you call it a night. The rest is just a matter of where the sun is in the sky.

Deep breaths. I am taking deep breaths. Composure. Which, for me, means composing... Maybe this is my way of creating the illusion of control over something I have no control over. Like, if it's just a story I'm telling or a song I'm singing, then I'll be okay because I'm the guy who's providing the words.

There's no way to release yourself from a memory. It ends when it wants to end, whether it's in a flash or long after you've begged it to stop.

There are times I think of us all and I wish we were back in second grade. Not really that young. But I wish it felt like second grade. I’m not saying everyone was friends back then. But we all got along. There were groups, but they didn’t really divide. At the end of the day, your class was your class, and you felt like you were a part of it. You had your friends and you had the other kids, but you didn’t really hate anyone longer than a couple of hours. Everybody got a birthday card. In second grade, we were all in it together. Now we’re all apart.

The secret to living long is to have something to live for.

What separates us from the animals, what separates us from the chaos, is our ability to mourn people we’ve never met.