Above the dirt of an unmarked grave and beneath the shadow of the abandoned refinery, the children would play their own made up games: Wild West Accountants! in which they would calculate the loss of a shipment of gold stolen from an imaginary stagecoach, or Recently Divorced Scientists! in which they would build a super-collider out of garbage to try and win back their recently lost loves.

The longer human beings exist, it seems, the less likely we are to choose to be brave.

It is what we see when we imagine what the afterlife must be like: our happiest triumphs, our most sincere moments, stolen from the seam of our lives, a respite just before the onset of imminent tragedy.

Being decent is the only thing that matters in a terrible world like this.

People are just greedy animals, after all.

Sex scenes in books are always like first person, from this male perspective and just about how awesome he is. It feels like such a fantasy.

Maybe that's why people have friends at all. Not because they like them so much but because they don't make them feel so much worse.