I kept waiting for that loneliness and nervousness to make me want to go back. But it never did.

The Colonel's hand was so little, and I grabbed it tight, his cold seeping into me and my warmth into him. 'I memorized the populations,' he said.

The food was so good that with each passing course, our conversation devolved further into fragmented celebrations of its deliciousness: 'I want this dragon carrot risotto to become a person so I can take it to Las Vegas and marry it.

I opened the door. He looked down at my shirt and smiled. "Funny," he said. "Don't call my boobs funny," I answered.

I enjoy writing about people falling in love, probably because I think the first time you fall in love is the first time that you have to figure out how you're going to orient your life. What are you going to value? What's going to be most important to you? And I think that's really interesting to write about.

“I thought we were in a church basement, but we are literally in the heart of Jesus.” “Someone should tell Jesus,” I said. “I mean, it's gotta be dangerous, storing children with cancer in your heart.” “I would tell Him myself.” Augustus said, “but unfortunately I am literally stuck inside of His heart, so He won't be able to hear me.”

That's what I realized: if I did get her back somehow, she wouldn't fill the hole that losing her created.