I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar.

I came to the conclusion a while ago that there is nothing romantic or supernatural about loving someone: Love is the privilege of being responsible for another. It was, for a time, what kept me going: Each morning, for a little while, I got to feel the weight of the yoke on my back as I pulled the ancient cart of my species.

I dislike the phrase ‘Internet friends,’ because it implies that people you know online aren’t really your friends, that somehow the friendship is less real or meaningful to you because it happens through Skype or text messages. The measure of a friendship is not its physicality but its significance.

Was it animal pee or human pee? Someone asked. How would I know? What, am I an expert in the study of pee?

All good American literature is always interested in people who are ambiguously heroic, like Gatsby.

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

The world," he said, "is not a wish-granting factory," and then he broke down, just for one moment, his sob roaring impotent like a clap of thunder unaccompanied by lightning, the terrible ferocity that amateurs in the field of suffering might mistake for weakness.