“All the effort went into getting there and then I had nothing left. I thought I'd got somewhere, then I found I had to go on.”

“I had made it somewhere special, and I'd gotten there all on my own. Nobody had given it to me. Nobody had told me to do it. I'd climbed and climbed and climbed, and this was my reward. To watch over the world, and to be alone with myself. That, I found, was what I needed.”

“I need to talk to Lena" There it was. I'd finally said it. The one thing that had kept me from being able to exhale all day. The thing that had made me feel like I couldn't sit down, like I couldn't stay. Like I had to get up and go somewhere, even if I had nowhere to go.”

“Nothing is as bad as it seems,' I thought with the last remnants of my dense optimism. It couldn't be. I'd already lost everything once, I'd been ten, and so had countless other people I knew, and they all picked up and kept going. Or they picked up and went in a slightly different direction.”

“And then, a strangely comforting thought trickled through me—I had nothing, so I could do anything now. Anything I wanted. I had nothing left to lose.”

“After all, when I was in school, I thought I had a good time. It was only after I graduated and got out into the worlf that I realized how miserable I'd acutally been.”