If we communicated with something like music, we would never be misunderstood, because there is nothing in music to understand.

It is unrealistic to think you can have an inflexible identity that never has to give or take or make compromises.

Was his death an essential stage in the continuation of his life?

I watched the sheets breathe when she breathed, like how Dad used to say that trees inhale when people exhale, because I was too young to understand the truth about biological processes.

What is suffering? I'm not sure what it is, but I know that suffering is the name we give to the origin of all the sighs, screams, and groans — small and large, crude and multifaceted — that concern us. The word defines our gaze even more than what we are looking at.

Feathers filled the small room. Our laughter kept the feathers in the air. I thought about birds. Could they fly is there wasn't someone, somewhere, laughing?

Life is scarier than death.