If I die, who’s going to take care of my shadow? Or will it return to the night, from whence it came? While I sleep at night I keep my shadow folded neatly in my underwear drawer.

The little things of life, sweet and excellent in their place, must not be the things lived for; the highest must be sought and followed; the life of heaven must be begun here on earth.

A choir of seedlings arching their necks out of rotted tree stumps, sucking life out of death. I am the forest's conscience, but remember, the forest eats itself and lives forever.

I was driving over the Buckman Bridge when 9/11 happened. If I’d have know my actions would directly lead to the deaths of 3,000 people, I’d have taken another bridge.


Time has transfigured them intoUntruth. The stone fidelityThey hardly meant has come to beTheir final blazon, and to proveOur almost-instinct almost true:What will survive of us is love.

Look at the stupid, poor people. Look at the stupid, poor, burned-out people. Look at the stupid, poor, burned-out people, look at their dead baby. It's death porn for the masses.

Not every loss was confirmed by an officer at the door. Nor a telegram with the power to sink a fleet. Loss, often the worst kind, also arrived through the deafening quiet of an absence.

The chanting went on, the musicians giving in to the rhythm of their own being, finding healing in touching that rhythm, and healing in chanting about death, the only real god they knew.

…Not that it was unjust; not that the scales were forced out of balance. Where there had been good, it showed as clearly. Kindnesses, accomplishments, all those were present, too.

Then, as his planet killed him, it occurred to Kynes that his father and all the other scientists were wrong, that the most persistent principles of the universe were accident and error.

The flashing black line on an empty Word document reminds me that my life is counting down second by second, and that if I don’t write I’ll have wasted my time here on earth.

DEATH: "Mostly they aren't too keen to see me. They fear the sunless lands. But they enter your realm each night without fear."MORPHEUS: "And I am far more terrible than you, sister.

I wonder if everyone who faces death hurts like this. It's as though for the first time I realize how much just being alive makes my body ache. But I don't want that ache to stop.

I wish the night would end,I wish the day'd begin,I wish it would rain or snow,or the wind would blow,or the grass would grow,I wish I had yesterday,I wish there were games to play...

God, there must be a meaning. Fiercely he was certain that there must be a meaning.Surely, while we live we are not lost.Oh Janos, Janos my brother!Surely we are not lost--while we live.