“The only thing you have to do in this life is die," said Mrs. Pinsky..."everything else is a choice.”

“But the past is long, and the future is short.”

“We were like wanderers in a desert, blessed with a rare downpour, but unable to store the rain.”

“It requires a certain kind of bravery, I suppose, to choose the status quo. There's a certain boldness to inaction.”

“This was the first time I noticed it, the inevitable space between father and man.”

“I could no longer remember the way my mother's eyes looked before the slowing. Had they always been so red around the edges? Surely, those pockets of gray beneath her lower lashes were new. She sti...”

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”

“If I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and t...”

“I'm an Earth ecstatic, and my creed is simple: All life is sacred, life loves life, and we are capable of improving our behavior toward one another. As basic as that is, for me it's also tonic and ...”

“The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn't li...”

“I wonder if fears ever really go away, or if they just lose their power over us.”

“Fear is all in the mind”

“Growing up, I had the weird fantasy list: I wanted to be Alice Cooper, Steven Spielberg, and Stan Lee. You have to have almost psychotic drive, because you're going to have years of failure.”

“Growing up, I didn't feel cool; I didn't fit into any crowd.”

“When you're growing up, I think there's this idea that the coolest people are the ones who are really rude and feverish. But I've come to realize that isn't cool.”