“I wonder if it will rain after we die. When you kill yourself, you don't know what happens next, afterward.”

“Well, why did you kill Jeremiah? And don't bother feeding me some story about how you just happened to wander along after he spontaneously died. I know you did this.”

“Sympathy is what you have for someone after they die, pity you have for someone when they don't have a date to the biggest dance of the year. Empathy is what I do to you when you judge me. Envy is having pity on yourself. Can you discern the rest for yourself?”

“I have to know""What? What do you have to know?""What you taste like." Another step.What happens when you know?" she rasped."I stop wondering. Stop dreaming of you every night, thinking of you every minute of every day." Another step closer. "I think you wonder, too. I think you dream of me and wonder. You hate yourself for it. You hate me for it, but you cannot stop.”

“When I am working on a book or story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day next you hit it again.”

“All that human energy, wasted, in response to the simple fact that we know we are going to die, and we don't know what happens after, and we're afraid that this life is all there is.”