“The only thing you have to do in this life is die," said Mrs. Pinsky..."everything else is a choice.”

“Maybe it had begun to happen before the slowing, but it was only afterward that I realized it: My friendships were disintegrating. Things were coming apart. It was a rough crossing, the one from childhood to the next life. And as with any other harsh journey, not everything survived.”

“So much that seems harmless in daylight turns imposing in the dark. What else, you had to wonder, was only a trick of light?”

“How much sweeter life would be if it all happened in reverse, if, after decades of disappointments, you finally arrived at an age when you had conceded nothing, when everything was possible.”

“It was a rough crossing, the one from childhood to the next life. And as with any other harsh journey, not everything survived.”

“I think we lost something else when we lost that crisp rhythm, some general shared belief that we could count on certain things.”

“I never knew until then that snow made everything quiet, somehow silencing all the world's noise.”