“We have bottled all the stars this evening, my young friend.”

“Pudge, my friend, we are indefuckingstructible.”

“I would always love Alaska Young, my crooked neighbor, with all my crooked heart.”

“my mom and dad came into my room, and even though it was really not big enough for all three of us, they lay on either side of the bed with me and we all watched ANTM on the little TV in my room.”

“We didn't have sex. We never got naked. I never touched her bare breast, and her hands never got lower than my hips. It didn't matter. As she slept, I whispered, "I love you, Alaska Young.”

“But the not-knowing would not keep me from caring, and I would always love Alaska Young, my crooked neighbor, with all my crooked heart.”

“The Z’s will kill us all, and then the Z’s will die out and in sixtyyears there will be no one to remember our silly war, Caroline’swasted ammunition, my year of zombic survivalism, Rene DesCartes’smusings, or Michelangelo’s sculptures. And that is really only thesadness here as I drink a thousand-dollar bottle of wine down herein the cellar: We did a few things worth remembering, and I wish forsomeone to remember them.”