"When ill, the patient assumes what Parsons called 'the sick-role'. Accordingly, the sick person is, on the one hand, excused his or her social responsabilites, but, on the other hand, is expected to desire a return to health and to comply unquestioningly with the directives of medical experts in order to achieve this goal."

"We want life to make sense. If we don’t find meaning and orientation, we are bound to fabulate a living and invent an inspiring life story. When we write out a chosen script, we’ll have to make time to hunker down into attuning it to the hitches of the road map, time and again, with fractious patience. ( 'Everybody his story' )."

"I don't know what happened. Disease? War? Social collapse? Or was it just us? The Dead replacing the Living? I guess it's not so important. Once you've arrived at the end of the world, it hardly matters which route you took."

"Each of us has a call on our lives. This call says, ‘It’s time to get your act together, then take it on the road.’ This call says, ‘Put on your traveling shoes so that you can be of use to others... So that you can wear your soul on the outside, light the way for others, and pass it on."

"Follow your dreams Bailey. Be they Harvard or somehing else entirely. No matter what that father of yours says, or how loudly he might say it. He forgets that he was someone's dream once, himself."

"I'm doin' something different. I mean, I talk a little bit about race and interracial dating, but it's not the heart of my act. I just try to do what I think is funny; there's no huge message or through line."

"Her fatigue was gone; she felt vital and strong, like a tree coming back to life in the springtime, vibrant with sap, ready to put out buds and then blossoms."