“What would happen if I cut there? Right across my face where everyone could see. Everyone would know. Maybe someone would finally stop me.”

“Instead, he would make death his final project, the center point of his days. Since everyone was going to die, he could be of great value, right? He could be research. A human textbook. Study me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me.”

“I'm like everyone else—I see the world in terms of what I would like to see happen, not what actually does.”

“If everyone could learn that what is right for me does not make it right for anyone else, the world would be a much happier place.”

“Everyone always asks you where you would go if you died right now. But what if you didn't? Then what would you do?”

“If I had a talent I could claim, it would be as a finder of trouble. Which is undoubtedly what I'd find by sticking my nose where it had no right to be. But would I let a thought of trouble stop me? Not a snowflake's chance in hell.”