I wanted to hit him. I wanted to hold him. I wanted to shout myself into his ear.

It’s hard to say goodbye to the place you’ve lived. It can be as hard as saying goodbye to a person.

Or maybe what he fears is just the opposite: that nobody is looking; that his death, like his life, is without purpose; that there is neither greater good nor evil--only people living and dying because their bodies function and then do not; that the universe is a rip.

From space, astronauts can see people making love as a tiny speck of light. Not light, exactly, but a glow that could be confused for light - a coital radiance that takes generations to pour like honey through the darkness to the astronaut's eyes. In about one and a half centuries - after the lovers who made the glow will have long since been laid permanently on their backs - the metropolitan cities will be seen from space. They will glow all year. Smaller cities will also be seen, but with great difficulty. Towns will be virtually impossible to spot. Individual couples invisible.

I'm sorry for my inability to let unimportant things go, for my inability to hold on to the important things.

People around the world were moving from one place to another. No one was staying.

Do you have any coffee?'...'It stunts my growth, and I'm afraid of death.