Life, people learned, was not easy. Life was not cake. Life was not a carrot cake.

I think mostly the commodifying comes after I've done something that has some other value to me.

One seemed simply to be here, less an accumulation of moments than a single arrangement continuously gifted from some inaccessible future.

loneliness can fly a helicopter through a cut-out shape of a helicopter the same size as the helicopter and that's it's only skill and it isn't good enough but it's still amazing.

I know,' said Erin, and described how she'd lately felt depressed in a new and scary way, which Paul also had felt lately and described as a sadness-based fear, immune to tone and interpretation, as if not meant for humans - more visceral than sadness, but unlike fear because it decreased heart rate and impaired the senses, causing everything to seem 'darker.

When I'm talking to someone I think 'can I use this dialogue in a book,'" said Luis. "If the answer is no I try talking to someone else.

I think I don't view myself as an author. I view myself as a person. I view anything as part of being a person, so I feel okay with "marketing" or other things like that.