Chicago is the Great American City, and it was really great to live there during a time of economic expansion and opportunity and growth. I felt like I was living at the center of the world. Unlike New York, no one expects you to be a professional writer.

Issac:"I dislike living in a world without Augustus Waters." Computer: "I don't understand-" Issac: "Me neither. Pause

What matters to you defines your mattering.

That's who you really like. The people you can think out loud in front of.

My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.

In those fifty, the Old Man made me take religion seriously. I'd never been religious, but he told us that religion is important whether or not we believed in one, the same way that historical events are important whether or not you personally lived through them.

The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we'd done were less real and important than they had been hours before.