I'm watching her talk. Watching her jaw move and collecting her words one by one as they spill from her lips. I don't deserve them. Her warm memories. I'd like to paint them over the bare plaster walls of my soul, but everything I paint seems to peel.

There is no ideal world for you to wait around for. The world is always just what it is now, and it's up to you how you respond to it.

I would like my life to be a movie so I could cut to a montage.

I wince at her use of the word "human." I've never liked that differentiation. She is living and I'm dead, but we're both human. Call me an idealist.

Can we really choose anything?' 'Maybe. If we want to bad enough.

A month ago there was nothing on Earth I missed, enjoyed, or longed for. I knew I could lose everything and not feel anything, and I rested easy in that knowledge. But I'm growing tired of easy things.

Here we are on the road. We must be going somewhere.