“It's called loitering, which is like littering with human beings as the trash.”

“...the first sign of civilization is always trash.”

“In the end, blame didn't shine on an individual. It was a floodlight cast on all of us. And all because we longed for healing and happiness- as if happiness is a state of being. But it's not. Happiness is a vector. It's movement. Like my own momentum across the pool, joy can only be defined by the speed at which you're moving away from pain.”

“What he's really saying is: Please be a human being. With a life so full of rules and regiments, it's so easy to forget that's what they are. She knows—she sees—how often compassion takes a back seat to expediency.”

“does a sick society get so used to its illness that it can't remember being well? what if the memory is too dangerous for the people who like things the way they are?”

“I went home and tried to sleep, but couldn't, so I stared up at the moon, watching how it's trailing edge faded into darkness, so close to being full, but not quite there. A pregnant moon, Grandma called it. Full almost to bursting, and ready to give birth to something unthinkable.”

“It was at that moment he realized that his spirit was truly human once more. For he no longer remembered how to be alone without being lonely.”