“Everyone struggles against despair, but it always wins in the end. It has to. It's the thing that lets us say goodbye.”

“The only way we know it's true is that we both dreamed it. That's what reality is. It's a dream everyone has together.”

“But in the end it wasn't up to me. The bigs things never are. Birth, I mean, and death. And love. And what love bequeaths to us before we're born.”

“Winter is the season of alcoholism and despair.”

“It took courage to let things fall apart so beautifully.”

“But this was the thought of a depressive. An aspiring depressive, at the time. That was the odd thing about Leonard’s disease, the almost pleasurable way it began. At first his dark moods were closer to melancholy than to despair. There was something enjoyable about wandering around the city alone, feeling forlorn. There was even a sense of superiority, of being right, in not liking the things other kids liked.”

“She was always saying, 'Fuck this school,' or 'I can't wait until I get out of here.' But so did lots of kids.”