The world is broken, and all our attempts to fix it will inevitably fail, and some day all life will be extinguished from the planet and there will be no one to remember that any of us ever did anything. But this fact, strangely, does not delegitimize hope, because every now and again we find evidence that hope is helpful. This evidence, in my opinion, should be celebrated-even as we lament and fight the devastation.

Not the brightest gem in the jewelry shop, but you've got to admire his single-minded dedication to drug abuse.

My heart is really pounding," I said. "That's how you know you're having fun," Margo said.

I hope you didn't bring the Asian kid along thinking he's a computer genius. Because I'm not," Takumi said.

Margo says, "I know what she's talking about. The something deeper and more secret. It's like cracks inside of you. Like there are these fault lines where things don't meet up right.

In these pages, and in my memories, she reminds me that a short life can also be a good and rich life, that it is possible to live with depression without being consumed by it, and that meaning in life is found together, in family and friendship that transcends and survives all manner of suffering. As the poet wrote in the Bible's Song of Solomon, 'Love is strong as death.' Or perhaps even stronger.

She was nothing but good and I was nothing but bad, but then she died, and I didn't.