“Maybe we were all destined to just keep doing the same stupid things, over and over again, never really learning a single thing.”

“That was the thing. You never got used to it, the idea of someone being gone. Just when you think it's reconciled, accepted, someone points it out to you, and it just hits you all over again, that shocking.”

“That was the thing. You just never knew. Forever was so many different things. It was always changing, it was what everything was really all about.”

“Maybe I'd just figured out there were some things you were better off not knowing”

“I felt something catch in my throat, a sudden surge of sadness that caught me unaware, almost taking my breath away. That was the thing. You never got used to it, the idea of something being gone. Just when you think it's reconciled, accepted, someone points it out to you and it just hits you all over again, that shocking.”

“Sitting there with them, it was almost hard to remember when I first came to Perkins, so determined to remember to be a one-woman operation to the end. But that was the thing about taking help and giving it, or so I was learning; there was no such thing as really getting even. Instead, this connection, once opened, remained ongoing over time.”

“We'd start slow, the way we always did, because the run, and the game, could go on for awhile. Maybe even forever.That was the thing. You just never knew. Forever was so many different things. It was always changing, it was what everything was really all about. It was twenty minutes, or a hundred years, or just this instant, or any instant I wished would last and last. But there was only one truth about forever that really mattered, and that was this: it was happening. Right then, as I ran with Wes into that bright sun, and every moment afterwards. Look, there. Now. Now. Now.”