My parents always liked it when I cursed in front of them. I could see the pleasure of it in their faces. It signified that I trusted them, that I was myself in front of them.

Amsterdam is like the rings of a tree: It gets older as you get closer to the center.

The past feels distant, even when it's near. The future feels assured, even when it isn't.

A desert blessing, an ocean curse.

We live in a universe devoted to the creation, and eradication, of awareness. Augustus Waters did not die after a lengthy battle with cancer. He died after a lengthy battle with human consciousness, a victim - as you will be - of the universe's need to make and unmake all that is possible.

And I wanted to tell her that the pleasure for me wasn't planning or doing or leaving; the pleasure was in seeing our strings cross and separate and then come back together.

Good friends are hard to find and impossible to forget.