11/22/63

When all else fails, give up and go to the library.

We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why.

We did not ask for this room or this music. We were invited in. Therefore, because the dark surrounds us, let us turn our faces to the light. Let us endure hardship to be grateful for plenty. We have been given pain to be astounded by joy. We have been given life to deny death. We did not ask for this room or this music. But because we are here, let us dance.

If there is love, smallpox scars are as pretty as dimples. I'll love your face no matter what it looks like. Because it's yours.

...stupidity is one of the two things we see most clearly in retrospect. The other is missed chances.

I'm one of those people who doesn't really know what he thinks until he writes it down.

Sarcastic people tend to be marshmallows underneath the armor

But I believe in love, you know; love is a uniquely portable magic. I don’t think it’s in the stars, but I do believe that blood calls to blood and mind calls to mind and heart to heart.

For a moment everything was clear, and when that happens you see that the world is barely there at all. Don't we all secretly know this? It's a perfectly balanced mechanism of shouts and echoes pretending to be wheels and cogs, a dreamclock chiming beneath a mystery-glass we call life. Behind it? Below it and around it? Chaos, storms. Men with hammers, men with knives, men with guns. Women who twist what they cannot dominate and belittle what they cannot understand. A universe of horror and loss surrounding a single lighted stage where mortals dance in defiance of the dark.

Life turns on a dime. Sometimes towards us, but more often it spins away, flirting and flashing as it goes: so long, honey, it was good while it lasted, wasn’t it?

A person who doesn't learn from the past is an idiot, in my estimation.

Yeah, but what if you went back and killed your own grandfather?" He stared at me, baffled. "Why the fuck would you do that?

Party lights hang over the street, yellow and red and green. Sadie stumbles over someone’s chair, but I’m ready for this and I catch her easily by the arm. “Sorry, clumsy,” she says. “You always were, Sadie. One of your more endearing traits.” Before she can ask about that I slip my arm around her waist. She slips hers around mine, still looking up at me. The lights skate across her cheeks and shine in her eyes. We clasp hands, fingers folding together naturally, and for me the years fall away like a coat that’s too heavy and too tight. In that moment, I hope on thing above all others: that she was not too busy to find at least one good man … She speaks in a voice almost too low to be heard over the music. But I hear her – I always did. “Who are you, George?” “Someone you knew in another life, honey.

I know life is hard, I think everyone knows that in their hearts, but why dos it have to be cruel, as well? Why does it have to bite?

The past is obdurate.

Sometimes the things presented to us as choices aren't choices at all.

If you've ever been homesick, or felt exiled from all the things and people that once defined you, you'll know how important welcoming words and friendly smiles can be.

Humans were built to look back; that's why we have that swivel joint in our necks

We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why. Not until the future eats the present, anyway. We know when it's too late.

Sometimes a cigar is just a smoke and a story's just a story

Like all sweet dreams, it will be brief, but brevity makes sweetness, doesn't it?

Even people capable of living in the past don't really know what the future holds.

Sometimes a man and a woman reach a crossroads and linger there, reluctant to take either way, knowing the wrong choice will mean the end... and knowing there’s so much worth saving.

On the subject of love at first sight, I’m with the Beatles: I believe that it happens all the time.

I saw something even more beautiful than a sense of humor: an appreciation for life’s essential absurdity.

Life turns on a dime.

When you put on a clown suit and a rubber nose, nobody has any idea what you look like inside.