I think that it's a universal urge to have our pain not be felt alone and to have our joys not be felt alone.

Being a person, I had come to realize, is a communal activity. Dogs know how to be dogs. But people do not know how to be people unless and until they learn from other people.

In the dark beside me, she smelled of sweat and sunshine and vanilla.

She said, "It's not life or death, the labyrinth." "Um, okay. So what is it?" "Suffering," she said. "Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That's the problem. Bolivar was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering?... Nothing's wrong. But there's always suffering, Pudge. Homework or malaria or having a boyfriend who lives far away when there's a good-looking boy lying next to you. Suffering is universal. It's the one thing Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims are all worried about."

What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person.

All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm.

The Degree to which I am blessed staggers me... the degree to which I take that for granted shames me. -Streetwalking with Jesus