“The problem with cell phones is that you can’t slam them down into a cradle when you hang up. Your only option is to throw them, and if you do, they just skitter across the floor and crack their case. It’s not satisfying at all. I close my eyes and bend down to pick up the pieces.”

“For an apple you can’t reach up and pick, you have to climb that tree; the tree won’t bend down for you!”

“I had just finished cleaning up after breakfast when my cell phone rang. The caller identification came across as ‘G-Man’? “Hello?” “Hey baby,” the soft, sexy voice said. “Slate?” “Who the fuck else would be calling you that?” “Did you program your number into my cell phone?” “Uhh, yeah - is that a problem?”

“There are things we never tell anyone. We want to but we can’t. So we write them down. Or we paint them. Or we sing about them. It’s our only option. To remember. To attempt to discover the truth. Sometimes we do it to stay alive. These things, they live inside of us. They are the secrets we stash in our pockets and the weapons we carry like guns across our backs. And in the end we have to decide for ourselves when these things are worth fighting for, and when it’s time to throw in the towel. Sometimes a person has to die in order to live. Deep down, I know you know this. You just can’t seem to do anything about it. I guess it’s a sad fact of life that some of us move on and some of us inevitably stay behind. Only in this case I’m not sure which one of us is doing which. You were right about one thing though. It’s not fate. It’s a choice. And who knows, maybe we’ll meet again someday, somewhere up above all the noise. Until then, when you think of me, try and remember the good stuff. Try and remember the love.”

“It all comes down to this: when you recognise your loneliness in another person, when you see desperation so familiar to yours written across someone else, you can’t just let them leave.”

“That’s the problem with you nearly immortal types,” I said. “You couldn’t spot a pop culture reference if it skittered up and implanted an embryo down your esophagus.”