Reading with an eye towards metaphor allows us to become the person we’re reading about, while reading about them. That’s why there is symbols in books and why your English teacher deserves your attention. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if the author intended the symbol to be there because the job of reading is not to understand the author’s intent. The job of reading is to use stories as a way into seeing other people as a we ourselves.

i know he's been looking forward to this--and i know that i've been looking forward to this. but now i have to stop looking forward and start looking at where i am. it's hard.

I never liked writing concluding paragraphs to papers - where you repeat what you've already said with phrases like 'In summation', and 'To conclude'.

I think if you keep the box closed long enough you do kill the cat, actually.

The Colonel's hand was so little, and I grabbed it tight, his cold seeping into me and my warmth into him. 'I memorized the populations,' he said.

So here's my advice: Study broadly and without fear. Learn a language if you can, because that will make your life more interesting. Read a little bit every day. But more importantly, surround yourself with people who you like and make cool stuff with them. In the end, what you do isn't going to be nearly as interesting or important as who you do it with.

It was not an eventful day. I should have done extraordinary things. I should have sucked the marrow out of life. But on that day, I slept eighteen hours out of a possible twenty-four.