“I don’t even know how long she’s been gone. It’s like I’ve woken up in bed and she’s not here… because she’s gone to the bathroom or something. But somehow, I know she’s never gonna come back to bed. If I could just… reach over and touch… her side of the bed, I would know that it was cold, but I can’t. I know I can’t have her back… but I don’t want to wake up in the morning, thinking she’s still here. I lie here not knowing… how long I’ve been alone. So how… how can I heal? How am I supposed to heal if I can’t… feel time?
— Leonard Shelby, Memento (2000)
“I love you, Dex, so much. I just don’t like you anymore.
“If I can’t talk to you, then what is the point of you? Of us?
“How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you’re carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life… you start with the little things. The shelves, the drawers, the knickknacks, then you start adding larger stuff. Clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, your TV… the backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. You go bigger. Your couch, your car, your home… I want you to stuff it all into that backpack. Now I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office… and then you move into the people you trust with your most intimate secrets. Your brothers, your sisters, your children, your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. You get them into that backpack, feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks.
— Ryan Bingham, Up in the Air (2009)
“The whole point of being alive is to evolve into the complete person you were intended to be.