“Those were strange days, now that I look back at them. In the midst of life, everything revolved around death.”

“A tragedy need not have blood and death; it’s enough that it all be filled with that majestic sadness that is the pleasure of tragedy.”

“I’ve never once thought about how I was going to die,” she said. “I can’t think about it. I don’t even know how I’m going to live.”

“Where is it I’ve read that someone condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he’d only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once. Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!”

“I’m bored with it all. – Last Words”

“We see a hearse; we think sorrow. We see a grave; we think despair. We hear of a death; we think of a loss. Not so in heaven. When heaven sees a breathless body, it sees the vacated cocoon & the liberated butterfly.”

“I planned my death carefully, unlike my life, which meandered along from one thing to another, despite my feeble attempts to control it.”

“Because no one needs to live for ever. I think that sometimes you can outstay your welcome.”

“Parting is inevitably painful, even for a short time. It’s like an amputation, I feel a limb is being torn off, without which I shall be unable to function. And yet, once it is done… life rushes back into the void, richer, more vivid and fuller than before. ”

“Hanged”I hung myself today. Hanged? Whatever,the point is I hanged myself today and I’m stillhanging.I feel fine. Just bored. I keep hoping thatsomeone will come home and cut me downbut then I keep remembering that if I knewsomeone like that I wouldn’t be up here. Bitironic, right? Or is that not ironic? I readsomewhere that, like, anything funny is,in some way, ironic. But I don’t know if it’sfunny or not. I don’t think my brain owns“funny”, you know?I feel taller. I like that.I’ve never been away from my shadow forthis long. It had always clung to my feet,parting momentarily for a quick dive intothe swimming pool. But never for fivehours. I like it. There’s three feet of spacebetween my two and the floor.I wanted something this morning. I may bestuck. But at least I’m three feet closer to it.”

“… And the boy whose hair remained the color of lemons forever.”

“I think people would live a bit longer if they didn’t know how old they were. Age puts restrictions on things.”

“Your cold mornings are filled with the heartache about the fact that although we are not at ease in this world, it is all we have, that it is ours but that it is full of strife, so that all we can call our own is strife; but even that is better than nothing at all, isn’t it? And as you split the frost-laced wood with numb hands, rejoice that your uncertainty is God’s will and His grace toward you that that is beautiful, and a part of a greater certainty, as your own father always said in his sermons and to you at home. And as the ax bites into the wood, be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it. And when you resent the ache in your heart, remember: You will be dead and buried soon enough.”

“But on paper, things can live forever. On paper, a butterfly never dies.”

“He would reach for me in the middle of the night, nearly every single night, wrapping one of those solid arms around my waist and pulling me in close. So. Close.”