Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

by Gabrielle Zevin

“You’re incredibly gifted, Sam. But it is worth noting that to be good at something is not quite the same as loving it.”

We are all living, at most, half of a life, she thought. There was the life that you lived, which consisted of the choices you made. And then, there was the other life, the one that was the things you hadn’t chosen.

Every person you knew, every person you loved even, did not have to consume you for the time to have been worthwhile.

“What is a game?” Marx said. “It’s tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It’s the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing, you could win. No loss is permanent, because nothing is permanent, ever.”

“And what is love, in the end?” Alabaster said. “Except the irrational desire to put evolutionary competitiveness aside in order to ease someone else’s journey through life?”