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Living is an art, not a science.
“If living is an art, your Mima is Picasso.”
“I want to live in the calmness of the morning light.”
“Yes, it is. Every generation thinks they’re the ones who are going to reinvent the world. News flash: the world has been around for millions of years.”
“I got to hit the downtown library. That’s where I study. That be my home away from home.”
All the pictures I had of Mima and me together were happy pictures. I wondered if happiness would go away when she died.
We’d been so sure of ourselves, but now we were lost.
“We are what we like.”
“I told you that there were only two things you needed to learn in life. You needed to learn how to forgive. And you needed to learn how to be happy.”
I couldn’t understand how she could be so calm. If I were dying, I would be really sad. And pissed off.
it’s not other people who make you feel like you’re alone. You do it to yourself.”
“I know you sometimes think that people are like books. But our lives don’t have neat logical plots, and we don’t always say beautiful, intelligent things like the characters in a novel. That’s not the way life is. And we’re not like letters—”
What was it that made my engine run—the genetic characteristics I got from my biological father or the characteristics I acquired from my father, the man who raised me? Which of my fathers was going to have the big say on the man I would become?
Some people were just born into the wrong family or adopted by the wrong family, or they were born with something broken inside them.
But I don’t remember that. If you don’t remember something, it doesn’t hurt.”
“Wouldn’t it be great, Sally, if we could just push the delete button in our brains and forget the times somebody hurt us?”
“I guess we can’t just pick the good things to remember, can we?”
As I sat there and looked up at all the stars, I felt really, really small.
I turned around and saw that strange and sad look on Sam’s face. I watched her and her Aunt Lina stare at each other for what seemed a long time. Something was being said. Something important. Something that had to be said without words.
The world had changed. And this new world was quiet and sad.
But then I got to thinking that it was strange to live one’s life and still be prepared for death.
I heard her sobbing. Then I saw why. Her mother had left a note on the bathroom mirror, written in lipstick: just because my love isn’t perfect doesn’t mean i don’t love you.
Accidents are the cruel part of life. It’s part of the equation of this thing we call living.
In the end, life and death are mysteries.”
I didn’t like Sylvia very much. But I loved her anyway. She was my sister.”
“Sometimes we get to keep the things we have in our heads to ourselves.”
As I watched Mima serve everyone that Sunday afternoon, I wondered how many more meals she had left in her.
“He didn’t do anything to you, Sam. It’s not your place to hate him.”
Where was the logic to living?
“You know how to hold a grudge, don’t you?” “It’s not always such a bad thing, you know. Keeps a lot of shitheads out of my life.”
