Failing to grapple with complexity actually turns out to be a pretty bad life strategy.

I pulled the oxygen tubes from my nostrils and raised the tube up over my head, handing it to Dad. I wanted it to be just me and just him.

You can say a lot of bad things about Tiny Cooper. I know, because I have said them. But for a guy who knows absolutely nothing about how to conduct his own relationships, Tiny Cooper is kind of brilliant when it comes to dealing with other people's heartbreak. Tiny is like some gigantic sponge soaking up the pain of lost love everywhere he goes.

Youth is counted sweetest by those who are no longer young.

I'm a big believer in pairing classics with contemporary literature, so students have the opportunity to see that literature is not a cold, dead thing that happened once but instead a vibrant mode of storytelling that's been with us a long time - and will be with us, I hope, for a long time to come.

Compromise is when you do what I tell you and I do what I want. ~Tiny Cooper

People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it's not sad, Van Houten. It's triumphant. It's heroic. Isn't that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm.