The nature of impending fatherhood is that you are doing something that you're unqualified to do, and then you become qualified while doing it.

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

'Do you know,' he asked in a delicious accent, 'what Dom Pérignon said after inventing champagne?' 'No?' I said. 'He called out to his fellow monks, 'Come quickly: I am tasting the stars!'

One of the pitfalls about writing about illness is that it is very easy to imagine people with cancer as either these wise-beyond-their-years creatures or these sad-eyed tragic people. And the truth is, people living with cancer are very much like people who are not living with cancer. They're every bit as funny and complex and diverse as anyone else.

They like their coffee like they like their ex-boyfriends: bitter.

Lonley, Vaguely pedophilic swing set seeks the butts of children.

I could stand up and go to her and kiss her. I could. But there is still too much to be ruined.