Tiny Cooper is splayed out across the thin carpet, using his backpack as a pillow. He’s wearing skinny jeans, which look very much like denim sausage casings.

I'm starting to realize that people lack good mirrors. It's so hard for anyone to show us how we look, & so hard for us to show anyone how we feel.

So how’s it going?” “Okay. Glad to be home, I guess. Gus told me you were in the ICU?” “Yeah,” I said. “Sucks,” he said. “I’m a lot better now,” I said. “I’m going to Amsterdam tomorrow with Gus.” “I know. I’m pretty well up-to-date on your life, because Gus never. Talks. About. Anything. Else.

the existence of broccoli does not in any way affect the taste of chocolate

My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.

This fear bears no analogy to any fear I knew before. This is the basest of all possible emotions, the feeling that was with us before we existed, before this building existed, before the earth existed. This is the fear that made fish crawl out onto dry land and evolve lungs, the fear that teaches us to run, the fear that makes us bury our dead.

And imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.