We had pathetically simple dreams: to do meaningful work that we could be proud of, to be together, and to be happy.

Forget the noose. Forget the Iron Maiden. Forget the electric chair or the guillotine. The mind was mankind's most painful torture chamber, the blessed liberty to cogitate offering either doom or salvation, depending on one's disposition.

Dreams can change histories and songs can alter destinies- two ideas that on good days I believe wholeheartedly and on bad days I denounce as a bunch of bull.

Lying next to Eliza, I had the feeling I had I'd just found something I didn't even know I'd lost.

For the record, if I were Superman, a pale, scrawny guy holding a guitar would be Kryptonite.

You know what I was thinking about on my way home? How different my life would be if you’d made that gash a little deeper. Or how different yours would be if I’d vaulted myself off a roof nine years ago. Do you ever think about things like that? Like, if either you or I wouldn’t have made it, where would the other one be right now? It was something I thought about all the time: how death changes every remaining moment for those still living.

This is what it means to be in the middle of love, I thought. Being in the middle of love is like being in the middle of a war zone.