“in the end, each life is irreducible to anything other than itself. Which is as much as to say: lives make no sense.”

“And now, the end is near,And so I face the final curtain.My friend, I'll say it clear,I'll state my case, of which I'm certain.I've lived a life that's full.I've traveled each and every highway;And more, much more than this,I did it my way.”

“Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books. Books make sense of life. The only problem is that the lives they make sense of are other people's lives, never your own.”

“To consider what other people might say is hardly a good reason to take action or to defer it. You have your own life to live, Iris, and at its end, the only opinion that amounts to anything is that which God bestows”

“Love, in the universal sense, is unconditional acceptance. In the individual sense, the one-on-one sense, try this: we can say we love each other if my life is better because you're in it and your life is better because I'm in it. The intensity of the love is weighted by how much better.”

“It takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile, which make sense because yesterday I frowned so much I ended up pulling my groin muscle.”