I could try to pretend that I didn't care anymore, but it could never be true again. You can't just make yourself matter, and then die, Alaska, because now, I am irretrievably different, and I'm sorry I let you go, yes, but you made the choice.

You can't just make me different and then leave. You can't. You can't change me and make my whole life centered around you, then leave.

Sometimes the way you think about someone isn't the way they actually are.

You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth.

People, I thought, wanted security. They couldn't bear the idea of death being a big black nothing, couldn't bear the thought of their loved ones not existing, and couldn't even imagine themselves not existing. I finally decided that people believed in an afterlife because they couldn't bear not to.

I don't think you can ever fill the empty space with the thing you lost.

Barnacles on the container ship of consciousness.