I realized it in waves and we held on to each other crying and I thought, God we must look so lame, but it doesn't matter much when you have just now realized, all the time later, that you are still alive.

Because everybody who has ever lost their way in life has felt the nagging insistence of that question. At some point we all look up and realize we are lost in a maze, and I dont want us to forget Alaska, and I don't want to forget that even when the material we study seems boring, we're trying to und3erstand how people answered that question and the question each of you posed in your papers--how different traditions have come to terms with what Chip, in his final, called 'people's rotten lots in life.

We gotta do something about this frigging swing set,' he said. 'I'm telling you, it's ninety percent of the problem.

I could try to pretend that I didn't care anymore, but it could never be true again. You can't just make yourself matter, and then die, Alaska, because now, I am irretrievably different, and I'm sorry I let you go, yes, but you made the choice.

Not that smart. Not that hot. Not that nice. Not that funny. That's me: I'm not that.

Anything that happens all at once is just as likely to unhappen all at once, you know?

The job of reading is to use stories as a way into seeing other people as we see ourselves