Because everybody who has ever lost their way in life has felt the nagging insistence of that question. At some point we all look up and realize we are lost in a maze, and I dont want us to forget Alaska, and I don't want to forget that even when the material we study seems boring, we're trying to und3erstand how people answered that question and the question each of you posed in your papers--how different traditions have come to terms with what Chip, in his final, called 'people's rotten lots in life.

Every paper girl needs at least one string.

We're professional worriers. You're constantly imagining things that could go wrong and then writing about them.

depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying.

But mothers lie. It's in the job description.

I don't know how I look, but I know how I feel: Young. Goofy. Infinite.

You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.