“She launched the airplane and it caught a current and circled down toward the town, like a promise of something good.”

“By shooting the darkest areas three zones lighter, you turned a black, lifeless max black zone 0 into a zone 3. I think, in life, most of us did this all the time.”

“My one regret was that I never photographed the bat before we drank it.”

“What's the difference between sanity and madness anyway? We all play headgames with ourselves. We all have baggage. We all cope somehow. I'm not sure if I'm mad or sane. I mean, I hold my life together, I pay my bills, I raise my kids. But the world is so polarized and bizarre now that for some people, none of these these things matter if they're not wearing the right shoes or don't have the right credit score or a fancy family car. Some people think the most important things to worry about are handbags and tan lines. Meanwhile, war and crime and poverty unfold all around us, and we ignore it. In that environment, how can we even begin to talk about sanity and madness?”

“Sure, Mom.They stop and say hello, and then once you pass they talk the back off you like you were nothing. They assess your outfit, your hairstyle, and they garble what you say so it comes out ugly.”

“Cancer doesn’t give a shit how much you want to live. If it wants to kill you, it will.”

“Look at our culture. Look at the computer-enhanced people we compare ourselves to. Look at the expensive cars and trinkets we're all supposed to have. Look at how many people are wrapped up in that! Imagine how much money and worry we'd save ourselves if we stopped caring what kind of car we drove! and why do we care? perfection. But there is no such thing, is there? And if there is, then everyone is perfect in their own way, right?”

“She smiled at me, and I never forgot it. Or more accurately, I always remembered it.”

“I can't help seeing a cage for what it is. Sure, it protects the bulb, but maybe if people weren't so careless, then nothing would need to be caged.”

“maybe if people weren't so careless, then nothing would need to be caged.”

“You know that saying about how you don’t know what you have until it’s gone? I already did know what I had, and now that she’s gone, I know even more.”