I still wanted to know why. As though somebody was going to answer that for me, as though any answer would be satisfying.

His secret name, which belongs to me, and to him, and to no one else.

I wish I could close my eyes and be blown into dust and nothingness, feel all my thoughts disperse like dandelion fluff drifting off on the wind. But his hands keep pulling me back: into the alley, and Portland, and a world that has suddenly stopped making sense.

The sparrows jumped before they knew how to fly, and they learned to fly only because they had jumped.

The reason you can never go home again isn't necessarily that places change, but people do. So nothing ever looks the same.

Who knows? Maybe they’re right. Maybe we are driven crazy by our feelings. Maybe love is a disease, and we would be better off without it. But we have chosen a different road. And in the end that is the point of escaping the cure: We are free to choose. We are even free to choose the wrong thing.

Running is a mental sport, more than anything else. You're only as good as your training, and your training is only as good as your thinking.