I am packing up my books and some I haven’t opened in years, even some that are on my Life-Changing Shelf. So before i shove them in Ikea bags I am sort of trying to give them a little attention.

So I read A Farewell to Arms in high school and my name is written in cursive on the first page to prove it. I remember giving a presentation to the class about it but I don’t remember much about what I said or thought except that I loved it and that I used a projector and talked about THE RAIN as a MOTIF because that’s the kind of shit you do in high school.

I didn’t underline anything in it except this one passage on page 249, and, well, damn. The part in bold I put stars at both ends, drew a box around, and underlined. What?! I wonder how much of me really understood this yet. Am I so protective of my 15 year old self that I would venture to hope I didn’t, to hope I just thought it sounded nice?

That night at the hotel, in our room with the long empty hall outside and our shoes outside the door, a thick carpet on the floor of the room, outside the windows the rain falling and in the room light and pleasant and cheerful, then the light out and it exciting with smooth sheets and the bed comfortable, feeling that we had come home, feeling no longer alone, waking in the night to find the other one there, and not gone away; all other things were un-real. We slept when we were tired and if we woke the other one woke too so one was not alone. Often a man wishes to be alone and a girl wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. It has only happened to me like that once. I have been alone while I was with many girls and that is how you can be most lonely. But we were never lonely and never afraid when we were together. I know that the night is not the same as the day: that all things are different, that the things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist, and the night can be a dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has started. But with Catherine there was no difference in the night except that it was an even better time. If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it kills you too but there will be no special hurry.