“Nothing helped until the day she took a tablet and pencil into the basement and moved the event out of her and onto paper, where it was reshaped into a kind of simple equation: loss equaled the need to love again, more.”

“In our travels, we have come across many equations--math for understanding the universe, for making music, for mapping stars, and also for tipping, which is important. Here is our favorite equation: Us plus Them equals All of Us. It is very simple math. Try it sometime. You probably won’t even need a pencil.”

“There were many things he had to tell her, but what he really needed to say was simple. “I’ve missed you so much and ache to see you again. Every moment of the day no matter what else I’m doing you’re in my thoughts. I want to … need to see you again.Please come to me.”Pressing pencil to paper, he wrote. “See me. 7. Jim.” He thought a moment and added “Livery Stable” just as it was printed on the sign above the door of the building.Folding the paper, he wrote “Miss Johnson” on the outside.”

“Now. Maybe you think it is arrogant or self centered, or ridiculous for me to believe that God bothered to wiggle a cheap bolt out of my new used car because he or she needed to keep me away for a few days until just the moment when my old friend most needed me to help her mother move into whatever comes next. Maybe nothing conscious helped to stall me so that I would be there when I could be most useful. Or maybe it did. I’ll never know for sure. And anyway, it doesn’t really matter.”

“I’m not sure what it was or where she sprayed it, but her scent will be the end of the life I loved. And I will find comfort in the simpleness of sitting with her on a Saturday afternoon with nothing else to do.”

“She’s the kind of woman where if you give her an inch, she’ll take the whole penis.
 She took all I had, and she didn’t even take me out to coffee.”