Forward momentum only worked as a strategy if one had correctly identified which way was forward.

I spent my 20s working in patient care at a large university hospital, an experience that has informed all my work and has given me a lot of human observation to draw on.

One foot in front of the other, wasn't that the grownup way of solving problems? Surely he ought to be a grownup at his age.

When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. When you desire a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it.

Adulthood isn't an award they'll give you for being a good child. You can waste years, trying to get someone to give that respect to you, as though it were a sort of promotion or raise in pay. If only you do enough, if only you are good enough. No. You have to just take it. Give it to yourself, I suppose. Say, I'm sorry you feel like that and walk away. But that's hard

When you give each other everything, it becomes an even trade. Each wins all.

As the week wore on, Ivan contemplated the merits of inertia as a problem-solving technique with growing favor