“How many people are we going to lose before the universe decides we've had enough?" Carly asked me. I didn't answer, but if I had known what was coming I would have said, "All of them.”

“A few years back, when I finally got smart enough to go to a therapist, she asked me how I had held things together all these years.It didn't take long to come up with an answer. 'That's easy. I belong to a book club”

“she started asking me all kinds of personal questions – how many girls had I slept with? Where I was from? Which university did I go to? What kind of music did I like? Had I ever read any novels by Osamu Dazai? Where would I like to go if I could travel abroad? Did I think her nipples were too big? I made up some answers and went to sleep, but next morning she said she wanted to have breakfast with me, and she kept up the stream of questions over the tasteless eggs and toast and coffee. What kind of work did my father do? Did I get good marks at school? What month was I born? Had I ever eaten frogs? She was giving me a headache, so as soon as we had finished eating I said I had to go to work. . .”

“We've had this conversation before, but humor me. How many people in this room have a soul? A shot at heaven, or whatever there is after this life.”

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

“I wonder now, with everything said and done, if things would have been different had I remembered what the Tree had told me. Would I have made the same decisions, the same mistakes? Where would I be, had I remembered? Had I listened? I have learned in my short time here on this world that we as humans are all capable of a great many things, our minds able to process so much. Too much, really. But our greatest curse, our greatest folly, if you will, is our ability of hindsight.Of regret.Oh, Seven. How I wish I would have known.”