“We began our hospital visits: one day Susan, one day me, everyday The Big Hoom. On one of these visits, she told me about the tap that opened at my birth and the lack drip filling her up, and it tore a hole in my heart. If this was what she could manage with a single sentence, what did thirsty years of marriage do to The Big Hoom?”

“My mother helped me to get past that. She was always there for me, until she dies. I remember she told me once, about big hearts and small hearts, and that not everyone could be blessed with a big one that had room to care for a lot of people. She promised me that mine was big, and that I was the lucky one for it.”

“My mama taught me the most important lesson of all: "Sometimes you don't know why things happen until later." She still gets me through the dark days even to this day, because of that one day we sat in the grass, with my heart broken to smithereens, and she told me that one simple phrase that changed my life.”

“Elizabeth is my happiness, he thought again. “I could hate her for what she did to me.”“Because of one unsuccessful beheading?” She tapped her claw to her chin. “Wow. I never thought you were such a pussy. I’m rethinking our friendship.”

“My mother said she already knew how I was. She could tell I was like that since I was a baby. She told me a story about when I was a toddler. She said that one day, she heard an alarm clock ringing in her room and when she went inside, she saw me bent over it. When she got closer, she could she me shaking baby powder on it!“What are you doing, Joey?” She asked me.“Baby crying,” was my reply.”

“It's funny. When we were alive we spent much of our time staring up at the cosmos and wondering what was out there. We were obsessed with the moon and whether we could one day visit it. The day we finally walked on it was celebrated worldwide as perhaps man's greatest achievement. But it was while we were there, gathering rocks from the moon's desolate landscape, that we looked up and caught a glimpse of just how incredible our own planet was. Its singular astonishing beauty. We called her Mother Earth. Because she gave birth to us, and then we sucked her dry.”