Atmosphere

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

‘You have to have something on the line, for it to be called character.’ ”

I want to spend my energy thinking not of how my actions might be frowned upon by a man in the sky, but how my actions affect every living and non-living thing around me.

Joan laughed, too, but these were the moments of legacy she found the most compelling: the chance to share something of the past with a person who could bring it further into the future. She knew most of the world was focused on bigger triumphs—scientific discoveries, great works of art—but a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a strawberry milkshake seemed to Joan, at that very moment, a grand thing to carry forward.