You can't avoid orphan stories, child. Every story is an orphan story. We are all orphaned sooner or later.

"I accept your condemnation," I said.

In the end, the end of a life only matters to friends, family, and other folks you used to know. For everyone else, it's just another end.

Should have. Would have. Could have. Didn't.

For the longest time after that, neither of us said anything. I was unaccustomed to his silence, but I didn't mind it. I knew near everything about him, and he knew near everything about me, and all that made our quiet a kind of song. The kind you hum without even knowing what it is or why you're humming it. The kind that you've always known.

I know you did, lass. You're the toughest girl I know." "'Lass'? Where did that come from?" "I don't know. I just felt the urge to call you that.

When I was in my twenties and broke, I'd buy books before food. A meal will sustain you for a few hours, a good book will sustain you for life.