“I sat beside Carl, helping adjust the well-worn flight jacket he used as a blanket. He wore his terminal diagnosis with resigned bravado. I tried to make small talk, but it was going terribly. What words of solace can you offer someone who doesn’t have long to live and knows it? [….]
But Carl seemed content to have me just sit there, my company alone helping to ease some of his suffering. Once I accepted that I had nothing to do, nowhere to go, and, perhaps most important, no one to be, I relaxed. Carl glanced sideways at me and smiled. We both understood I had just learned a lesson. Together we watched another cloud go by.”
–Perry Garfinkel. Buddha or Bust: In Search of Truth, Meaning, Happiness, and the Man Who Found Them All. Uncorrected proof. New York: Harmony Books, 2006. Quote on page 3.