Of course I tensed up when he touched me. To be with him was to hurt him-inevitably. And that's what I'd felt as he reached for me: I'd felt as though I were committing an act of violence against him, because I was.

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.

So I wasn't lying, exactly. I was just choosing among truths.

There will come a time, when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything.

Who would you die for? Who would you wake up at five forty-five in the morning for even though you don't even know why he needs you?

We did a few things worth remembering, and I wish for someone to remember them.

He let his mind wander. It went to a predictable place, and he missed her