“The most understandable thing in the world should be how minutes lead to hours, how hours lead to days, how days can make a year. And yet, this neat progression can still be surprising.”

“Moments into minutes. Minutes into hours. Hours into days. Days into years. Years into possibility. This will linger.”

“How can you spend hours every day trying in small ways to figure out who you are, then have a near-stranger give you a sentence of yourself that says it better than you ever could?”

“I don’t think meaning is something that can be explained. You have to understandhopeful and selectively blind as the next guy, but because I don’t think meaning is something that can be explained. You have to understandit on your own. It’s like when you’re starting to read. First, you learn the letters. Then, once you know what sounds the letters make, you use them to sound out words. You know that c-a-t leads to cat and d-o-g leads to dog. But then you have to make that extra leap, to understand that the word, the sound, the “cat” is connected to an actual cat, and that “dog” is connected to an actual dog. It’s that leap, that understanding, that leads to meaning. And a lot of the time in life, we’re still just sounding things out. We know the sentences and how to say them. We know the ideas and how to present them. We know the prayers and which words to say in what order. But that’s only spelling.”

“How can something that doesn't have a form, doesn'r have a definition, doesn't have words-how can it have such weight? And yet, there's the need to swim.”

“composure, n.You told me anyway, even though I didn’t want to know. A stupid drunken fling while you were visiting Toby in Austin. Months ago. And the thing I hate the most is knowing how much hinges on my reaction, how your unburdening can only lead to me being burdened. If I lose it now, I will lose you, too. I know that. I hate it.You wait for my response.”

“This, I think, is how people survive: Even when horrible things have been done to us, we can still find gratitude in one another.”