"There's a fine edge to new grief, it severs nerves, disconnects reality-there's merch in a sharp blade. Only with time, as the edge wears, does the real ache begin."
"Everyone is happierif they have someone to look down on, as well as someone to look up to, especially if they resent both. This is not only the Beta Male strategy for survival, but the basis for capitalism, democracy, and most religions."
"Most of us don't live our lives with one, integrated self that meets the world, we're a whole bunch of selves. When someone dies, they all integrate into the soul-the essence of who we are, beyond the different faces we wear throughout our lives."
"Medication and forgiveness can make for joyous moments with the dying-it's like they get to return to childhood- and because nothing in the future matters, because you don't have to train them for life, teach lessons, forge applicable and practical memories, all the joy can be wicked from those last moments and stored in the heart."
"Sometimes a man must muster all of his courage to simply sit still. How much humanity has been spoiled for the confusion of movement with progress, my friend? How much?"
" 'And in jazz, every moment is a crisis' Sato quoted Wynton Marsalis, 'and you bring all your skill to bear on that crisis.' "
