“I wondered if there was a crazy person's license you had to apply for, some seminar you had to attend, or if you could just walk out of the house one day and get started.”

“How did I think of that?" I wondered. I didn't feel like I had thought of it. It's a sort of flow that happens when you are completely in the moment and not getting in your own way. Not trying so hard, not planning ahead, just getting out of your own head and letting the magic happen. You could apply this to any activity, of course. You could apply it to life.”

“I had been given a wonderful opportunity to be a novelist — a chance you just don't get every day.”

“I slammed out of the [house] and started walking, heading nowhere in particular. Sometimes you just need to go through a door.”

“Instead of killing herself, I wondered, could a person just shrink and crumple until she became nothing, until her traits and quirks wasted along with her body, until one day you realized that she had faded away?”

“You know, Michael, I used to sit around looking for a way to make sense of what happened, like there was some kind of answer I could find if I just looked hard enough. Then one day I realized that if there had been one, Dave would still be here. And I wondered if this...this feeling that I couldn't figure it all out...was what Dave had been feeling, too.”