Back in the late 1970's, when I was fifteen years old, I spent every penny I then had in the bank to fly across the continent in a 747 jet to Brandon, Manitoba, deep in the Canadian prairies, to witness a total eclipse of the sun.

I thought it would be such a sick joke to have to remain to be alive for decades and not believe in or feel anything.

Human beings are the only animal that thinks they change who they are simply by moving to a different place. Birds migrate, but it's not quite the same thing.

She thought about her life and how lost she’d felt for most of it. She thought about the way that all truths she’d been taught to consider valuable invariably conflicted with the world as it was actually lived. How could a person be so utterly lost, yet remain living?

She went crazy with a calm face, justifiably so.

So where do you start when you want to start your life again?

Never loan a book to someone if you expect to get it back. Loaning books is the same as giving them away.