We were just looking at ideas of each other.

Beware of that monster called 'self-loathing'.

Tobin," Mom said disapprovingly. She wasn't a particularly funny person. It suited her professionally - I mean, you don't want your cancer surgeon to walk into the examination room and be like, "Guy walks into a bar. Bartender says, 'What'll ya have?' And the guy says, 'Whaddya got?' And the bartender says, 'I don't know what I got, but I know what you got: Stage IV melanoma.

She is close enough to me that I can see her, because even now there is the outward sign of visible light, even at night in this parking lot on the outskirts of Algoe. After we kiss, our foreheads touch as we stare at each other. Yes, I can see her almost perfectly in this cracked darkness.

I fear your faith has been mis- placed—but then, faith usually is.

The part I enjoy most is not the doing, but the noticing.

But you know what they say about Gutshot: the population never goes up and never goes down, because every time a woman gets pregnant, a man leaves town.