“I feel like I'm playing chess underwater. The pieces keep floating away. I don't know where things are. I can't figure out tomorrow.”

“I'm that way, goofy as it sounds. Sometimes I don't want things to happen-I'm talking about good things, even wonderful things-because once they happen, I can't look forward to them anymore. But there's an upside, too. Once a wonderful thing is over, I'm not all that sad because then I can start thinking about it, reliving and reliving it in the virtual world in my head.”

“Live today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Just today. Inhabit your moments. Don’t rent them out to tomorrow. Do you know what you’re doing when you spend a moment wondering how things are going to turn out with Perry?You’re cheating yourself out of today. Today is calling to you, trying to get your attention, but you’re stuck on tomorrow, and today trickles away like water down a drain. You wake up the next morning and that today you wasted is gone forever. It’s now yesterday. Some of those moments may have had wonderful things in store for you , but now you’ll never know.”

“You’re cheating yourself out of today. Today is calling to you, trying to get your attention, but you’re stuck on tomorrow, and today trickles away like water down a drain. You wake up the next morning and that today you wasted is gone forever. It’s now yesterday. Some of those moments may have had wonderful things in store for you , but now you’ll never know.”

“He stared at me. "She liked you, boy." The intensity of his voice and eyes made me blink."Yes," I said."She did it for you, you know.""What?""Gave up her self, for a while there. She loved you that much. What an incredibly lucky kid you were."I could not look at him. "I know."He shook his head with a wistful sadness. "No, you don't. You can't know yet. Maybe someday..."I knew he was tempted to say more. Probably to tell me how stupid I was, how cowardly, that I blew the bestchance I would ever have. But his smile returned, and his eyes were tender again, and nothing harsherthan cherry smoke came out of his mouth.”

“They don't live here. They live in Heaven.'Where's that?'I don't know,' I said. 'Enos says it's right here, on this side of the wall, but I never saw an angel over here. Kuba says it's in Russia. Olek says Washington America.'What's Washington America?'Enos says it's a place with no wall and no lice and lots of potatoes.”

“And so I'm me again, Leo. Thanks to the example of a five-year-old. I'm hoping you wouldn't want it any other way. Not that you weren't flattered, right? I mean, to have a girl two thousand miles away going to pieces over you, weeping at the mere memory of you, losing her appetite, losing herself and self-respect - well, that's trophy enough for any guy's ego, huh?”