There are those individuals who die for a cause, and we say they have made the ultimate sacrifice. We call them martyrs, and we never doubt their sincerity. Yet many others search their entire lives for something—or someone—worth dying for and this is very different. These are the lonely and the desperate, fearful that their lives have no meaning. They yearn for the bullet, if only someone else will pull the trigger.

We all have our fictions, little lies we tell ourselves to keep going from one day to the next.

Everybody breaks sooner or later, Bob. Anyone can drown. Sometimes you see it. Most often, you don’t because the body protects and the skin hides, so drowning doesn’t look like drowning and some people scar so nicely. Take it from an expert.

She's got the kind of ethereal, unselfconscious beauty some young girls possess that breaks your heart. Or theirs.

The things you think about when you're a hair's breath away from getting yourself killed.

My English teacher said that a writer is the worst judge of his own work.

This is a fairy tale with teeth and claws.