Good friends are hard to find and impossible to forget.

I mean, I am pretty fabulous. Am I not?' 'You're a pillar of fabulosity in the community,' I tell him.

Ben's tongue is like sunscreen...It's good for your health and should be applied liberally.

Without pain, how could we know joy?' This is an old argument in the field of thinking about suffering and its stupidity and lack of sophistication could be plumbed for centuries but suffice it to say that the existence of broccoli does not, in any way, affect the taste of chocolate.

In the dark beside me, she smelled of sweat and sunshine and vanilla.

But why Alaska?' I asked her. 'Well, later, I found out what it means. It's from an Aleut word, Alyeska. It means 'that which the sea breaks against,' and I love that. But at the time, I just saw Alaska up there. And it was big, just like I wanted to be.

That is, to me at least, one of the most helpful and useful things books do for us: They are generous enough to allow us to choose what matters to us.