Like “love,” “hope” is one of those ridiculously disproportional words that by all rights should be a lot longer.

Dresden. Am I interrupting something?" "Well, I was going to settle down with a porn video and a bottle of baby oil, but I really don't have enough for two.

Jobs are a part of life. Maybe you've heard of the concept. It's called work? See, what happens is that you suffer through doing annoying and humiliating things until you get paid not enough money. Like those Japanese game shows, only without all the glory.

There should be a rule against your own inner monologue throwing around that much sarcasm.

Nay, but prithee, with sprinkles 'pon it instead," I said solemnly, "and frosting of white.

On the whole, we're a murderous race. According to Genesis, it took as few as four people to make the planet too crowded to stand, and the first murder was a fratricide. Genesis says that in a fit of jealous rage, the very first child born to mortal parents, Cain, snapped and popped the first metaphorical cap in another human being. The attack was a bloody, brutal, violent, reprehensible killing. Cain's brother Abel probably never saw it coming. As I opened the door to my apartment, I was filled with a sense of empathic sympathy and intuitive understanding. For freaking Cain.

The past was gone. Nothing could change what had already been. Looking back at it, letting its wounds fester, indulging in regret was just a different, slower way to die. The living moved forward.