“...people with nothing to declare carry the most.”

“We talked about nothing in particular, but it felt like we were talking about the most important things...”

“Sea horses have complicated routines for courtship, and tend to mate under full moons, making musical sounds while doing so. They live in long-term monogamous partnerships. What is perhaps most unusual, though, is that it is the male sea horse that carries the young for up to six weeks. Males become properly "pregnant," not only carrying, but fertilizing and nourishing the developing eggs with fluid secretions. The image of males giving birth is perpetually mind-blowing: a turbid liquid bursts forth from the brood pouch, and like magic, minuscule but fully formed sea horses appear out of the cloud.”

“If nothing matters, there's nothing to save.”

“I started carrying blank books like this one around, which I would fill with all the things I couldn't say...”

“What about a device that knew everyone you knew? So when an ambulance went down the street, a big sign on the roof could flashDON’T WORRY! DON’T WORRY!if the sick person’s device didn’t detect the device of someone he knew nearby. And if the device did detect the device of someone he knew, the ambulance could flash the name of the person in the ambulance, and eitherIT’S NOTHING MAJOR! IT’S NOTHING MAJOR!Or, if it was something major,IT’S MAJOR! IT’S MAJOR!And maybe you could rate the people you knew by how much you loved them, so if the person in the ambulance detected the device of the person he loved the most, or the person who loved him the most, and the person in the ambulance was really badly hurt, and might even die, the ambulance could flashGOODBYE! I LOVE YOU! GOODBYE! I LOVE YOU!One thing that’s nice to think about is someone who was the first person on lot’s of people’s lists, so that when he was dying, and his ambulance went down the streets to the hospital, the whole time it would flashGOODBYE! I LOVE YOU! GOODBYE! I LOVE YOU!”

“I made up my mind that nothing,, nothing was going to stop meNot even me.”