A little tin lump. [His lips purse against a wry smile.] You're not a Victorian orphan, Byerly, Jesus. And I don't think I see the best in people at all, I just don't see most people as only one thing. You, for example, are a veritable roller coaster of self-aggrandizement and self-deprecation, I can barely keep up.

Loss fucks people up. And there is so much of it, we're fucked up over and over. Maybe, since it happens so often we should learn to accept it with nothing more than good grace and a brave smile but it's impossible. Loss turns some of us into screaming wrecks and some of us into statues and who knows how you'll be affected this time, or the next. So I'm not going to judge someone on how they lose things, that's all.