Ultimately, it doesn't matter if the author intended a symbol to be there, because the job of reading is not to understand the authors intend. The job of reading is to see into other people as we see ourselves.

I’m on a roller coaster that only goes up, my friend.

You will not kill my girlfriend today, International Terrorists of Ambiguous Nationality!

But my miracle was different. My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman.

I was so frustrated with him. "I just want to be enough for you, but I never can be. This can never be enough for you. But this is all you get. You get me, and your family, and this world. This is your life. I'm sorry if it sucks. But you're not going to be the first man on Mars, and you're not going to be an NBA star, and you're not going to hunt Nazis.

Is that what relationships become? A reduced version of the hurt, nothing else let in. It was more than that. I know it was more than that.

I realized during my time as a chaplain that I didn't want to be a minister.