All sorts of yayness floods my brain. Love is such a drug.

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

We need never be hopeless because we can never be irreperably broken.

...But there's always suffering, Pudge. Homework or malaria or having a boyfriend who lives far away when there's a good-looking boy lying next to you. Suffering is universal. It's the one thing Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims are all worried about.

How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!" to a margin note written in her loop-heavy cursive: Straight & Fast.

Tobin," Mom said disapprovingly. She wasn't a particularly funny person. It suited her professionally - I mean, you don't want your cancer surgeon to walk into the examination room and be like, "Guy walks into a bar. Bartender says, 'What'll ya have?' And the guy says, 'Whaddya got?' And the bartender says, 'I don't know what I got, but I know what you got: Stage IV melanoma.

You have a choice in this world, I believe, about how to tell sad stories, and we made the funny choice.