"Even when our death is imminent, we carry the image of ourselves moving forward, alive, into the future."
- Dan Chaon
"You want a child because it is a link in the bridge that you are building between the past and the future, a cantilever that holds you, so that you are not alone."
"He had built his own future brick by brick around himself but there were no doors or windows, at least that was the way it seemed at the time he had thought to himself, I am locked in, it was like one..."
"I guess I always thought it would be bigger, when a terrible thing happened. Didn't you think so? Doesn't it seem like houses ought to be caving in, and lightning and thunder, and people tearing their..."
"I realized that I had the choice. I could give this moment a meaning, or I could choose to ignore it. It just depended on the kind of story I wanted to tell myself."
"We are always telling stories to ourselves, about ourselves...But we can control those stories...I believe that! Events in our life have meaning because we choose to give it to them"
"What happened to us? It was a question that interested her. Most people seemed to believe that they were experts of their own life story. They had a set of memories that they strung like beads, and th..."
"Hesitantly, I touched the stump where my finger used to be. In my mind, something almost remembered itself, but the fumes of turpentine were making me a little lightheaded; whatever memory was on the ..."
"Their house was about a mile outside of town. The kids would play outdoors, in the backyard and the large stubble field behind the house. Dusk seemed to last for hours, and when it was finally dark th..."
"You know what you learn when you study the legal system? Poor people pass down damage the way rich people pass down an inheritance."