Aging is not just decay, you know, its growth.

What she mostly wanted, he learned, was the same thing many people want--someone to notice she was there.

Everyone is in such a hurry. People haven’t found meaning in their lives, so they’re running all the time looking for it. They think the next car, the next house, the next job. Then they find those things are empty, too, and they keep running. Once you start running, it’s hard to slow yourself down.

...You can go your whole life collecting days, and none will outweigh the one you wish you had back.

Please do not leave me, he thought. He could not bear a world without Alli. He realized how much he relied on her from morning until night. She was his only conversation. His only smile. She prepared their meager food and always offered it to him first, even though he insisted she eat before he did. THey leaned on each other at sunsets. Holding her as they slept felt like his last connection to humanity.

Before you measure the years, you measure the days.

once we began to chime the hour, we lost the ability to be satisfied