“As an atheist, I believe that all life is unspeakably precious, because it’s only here for a brief moment, a flare against the dark, and then it’s gone forever.”

“For all the glamour of living forever … immortality is really just a long curse. Finite life is precious; it’s fleeting and significant. But immortality… immortality isn’t living at all. It’s a permanent existence void of meaning.”

“Life was precious. Life was fragile. Here one moment, gone the next. Every second should be milked for all it's worth because you never know when the bottom was going to drop out.”

“It’s a moment I’ll remember forever, because it belongs to me.”

“Because he tells me. All the fucking time. I’m precious to him and I know it because he shows me and he tells me. It’s beautiful. It’s real. It’s right.”

“But it happens, and I am thankful enough for that, for those fleeting, wakeful moments of beauty and truth. They are the real joy of being human, brief matches that flare in the dark.”