It's more impressive," I said out loud. "From a distance, I mean. You can't see the wear on things, you know? You can't see the rust or the weeds or the paint cracking. You see the place as someone once imagined it.

Our lives are composed of a finite set of moments that we choose how to spend.

I think maybe the reason I have spent most of my life being afraid is that I have been trying to prepare myself to train my body for real fear when it comes. But I am not prepared.

I don't think you're dying," I said. "I think you've just got a touch of cancer. He smiled. Gallows humor.

She taught me everything I knew about crawfish and kissing and pink wine and poetry. She made me different.

That smile could end wars and cure cancer.

Incidentally, did you know that the whole eight glasses a day thing is complete bullshit and has no scientific basis? So many things are like that. Everyone just assumes they're true, because people are basically lazy and incurious, which incidentally is one of those words that sounds like it wouldn't be a word but is.