“With every lecture, you’re forced to look again at every choice you’ve made over the lesson-by-lesson chain of your entire life. And after all these years, you see how little you have to work with, how limited your life and education have been. How scant was your courage and curiosity. Not to mention your expectations.”

“Her haunting me. The way a song stays in your head. The way you think life should be. How anything holds yourattention. How your past goes with you into every day of your future.”

“This is how fast your life can turn around. How the future you have tomorrow won't be the same future you had yesterday.”

“What do you do when your entire identity is destroyed in an instant? How do you cope when your whole life story turns out to bw wrong?”

“Your name told you just how your life would go.”

“They want me to account for my next ten years. Their way, everything in your life turns into an item on a list. Something to accomplish. You get to see how your life looks flattened out.The shortest distance between two points is a timeline, a schedule, a map of your time, the itinerary for the rest of your life.Nothing shows you the straight line from here to death like a list.”

“You have a choice. Live or die. Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice. Every time you don't throw yourself down the stairs, that's a choice. Every time you don't crash your car, you re-enlist.”