I just want to do something that matters. Or be something that matters. I just want to matter.

But my miracle was different. My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman.

Daddy is trying really fugging hard to think of a not-terrifying reason why you'd wake Daddy up in the middle of the night to ask that fugging question. But no. No. Daddy does not have a match or a lighter.

Neither novels or their readers benefit from any attempts to divine whether any facts hide inside a story. Such efforts attack the very idea that made-up stories can matter, which is sort of the foundational assumption of our species.

The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, there was no longer anyone to remember with.

All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm.

The tales of our exploits will survive as long as the human voice itself,' he said. 'And even after that, when the robots recall the human absurdities of sacrifice and compassion, they will remember us.