“With each beat, the heart pumps nearly three ounces of blood into the arteries--seventy-five to ninety gallons an hour when the body is at rest.”

“A five-hour flight works out to three days and nights on land, by rail, from sea to shining sea. You can chalk off the hours on the back of the seat ahead. But seventy-some hours will not seem so long to you if you tell yourself first: This is where I am going to be for the rest of my natural life.”

“Heart lesson #3: post-heartbreak survival. The heart is resilient, I mean literally. When a body is burned, the heart is the last organ to oxidize. While the rest of the body can catch flame like a polyester sheet on campfire, it takes hours to burn the heart to ash. My dear sister, a near-perfect organ! Solid, inflammable.”

“And your own heart generates enough pressure as it pumps blood throughout your body that it could squirt blood up to 30 feet. (I’ve never tried this, and I don’t recommend it.)”

“I take in great lungfuls of air. Atom by atom, the oxygen enters my blood and pumps in waves through my veins; it is tidal, this pumping blood. My heart beats mightily. If I ran any faster, gravity would loose its claims on my ankles, and my feet would pedal into the air.”

“A good quote is the nectar of a gallon of wisdom squeezed into an eight ounce glass." Johnny Flora”