“What if you could meet your soul mate?" the ghost asked. "You 'd want to avoid that?""Hell, yes. The idea that there's one soul out there, waiting to merge with mine like some data-sharing program, depresses the hell out of me.""It's not like that. It's not about losing yourself.""Then what is it?" Alex was only half listening, still occupied with the viselike tightness of his chest."It's like your whole life you 've been falling toward the earth, until the moment someone catches you. And you realise that somehow you 've caught her at the same time. And together, instead of falling, you might be able to fly.”

“I think it's just as likely that someone could say that this place, right here, is heaven, hell and earth all at the same time. And we still wouldn't know what to do differently. Everyone just muddles through, trying not to make too many mistakes [...] Half the time we walk around in love with the idea of a thing instead of the reality of it. But sometimes things don't turn out that way. You have to pay attention to what's real, what's in the world. Not some imaginary alternative, as if it's a choice we could make.”

“Having a moment of clarity was one thing; I'd had moments like that before. It had to be followed with a dedicated push of daily exercise. It's a trite axiom, but practice DOES make perfect. If you want to be a strong swimmer or an accomplished musician, you have to practice. It's the same with sobriety, though the stakes are higher. If you don't practice your program every day, you're putting yourself in a position where you could fly out of the orbit one more time.”

“When you only dream of doing one thing for the majority of your life, it's almost unfathomable to think about doing anything else. You don't know how. It's all you ever wanted and you'll not only fight like hell to get there, you'll fight like hell to stay.”

“But you make of it [life] what you can, and you do your best to enjoy the hell out of it, because it's the only life you get.”

“It's my experience that you first feel the impulse to write in your chest. It's like falling in love, only more so. It feels like something criminal. It feels like unspeakably wild sex. So, think: When you feel the overpowering need to go out and find some unspeakably wild sex, do you rush to tell your mom about it?”