“People will listen to you only when they know you're dying, otherwise they're just waiting for their turn to talk.”

“This is why I loved the support groups so much, if people thought you were dying, they gave you their full attention. If this might be the last time they saw you, they really saw you. Everything else about their checkbook balance and radio songs and messy hair went out the window. You had their full attention. People listened instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. And when they spoke, they weren't just telling you a story. When the two of you talked, you were building something, and afterward you were both different than before.”

“Just for the record, knowing when people are only pretending to like you isn't such a great skill to have.”

“Almost all the time, you tell yourself you're loving somebody when you're just using them. This only looks like love.”

“Someday you will die, and until you know that, you're useless to me.”

“Parents are like God because you wanna know they're out there, and you want them to think well of you, but you really only call when you need something.”

“you're a product just as much. a product of a product. the people who design cars, they're products, your teachers, products. the minister in your church, another product.”