“We sat on the floor eating donuts, completely dazed and hung over. I looked up at the window every so often to gaze at the Christmas lights. They were so beautiful. They blinked on and off in what should have been the early night dark but was really the early morning dark.”

“I thought about how, at twenty-six, I shouldn’t have to floss yet, who wants to be bothered! I didn’t even have the energy left over for flossing. I mean, how many things was I supposed to do? Flossing should only be done by people in their forties.”

“I first became aware of death when my father held me up to see the view from the top of the Empire State Building. I thought that if he moved me just one foot over, I would die. But I trusted him to hold me tight. I wouldn’t fall over, and he would place me down safely.”

“Oh, I don’t buy lottery tickets... because if I won, and I was capable of that kind of odd luck, then I would also be equally capable of extremely bad luck, like getting struck by lightning, or falling out of window or something. I’d rather just not know.”

“HappinessSo early it's still almost dark out.I'm near the window with coffee,and the usual early morning stuffthat passes for thought.When I see the boy and his friendwalking up the roadto deliver the newspaper.They wear caps and sweaters,and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.They are so happythey aren't saying anything, these boys.I think if they could, they would takeeach other's arm.It's early in the morning,and they are doing this thing together.They come on, slowly.The sky is taking on light,though the moon still hangs pale over the water.Such beauty that for a minutedeath and ambition, even love,doesn't enter into this.Happiness. It comes onunexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,any early morning talk about it.”

“I'd seen another shade of him, and if it had been light where we were now, he'd have seen the same of me. So I was grateful, as I had been so often in my life, for the dark.”

“Only in darkness could the light be so completely, brightly beautiful.”