““Don’t tell me. It changed your life.” I was smiling.
She smiled back. “It didn’t even change my mind.””

“People are terrified of changing their minds. Changing your mind is a door you don’t want to open because you don’t know what’s behind it. Changing your mind means losing all your friends. Changing your mind means a complete revolution in your life. Changing your mind means publicly admitting you’ve been wrong. […] People don’t want to change their minds.”

“A smile is an inexpensive way to change your looks.”

“my mother, poor fish,
wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times a
week, telling me to be happy: "Henry, smile!
why don't you ever smile?"

and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was the
saddest smile I ever saw”

“I don’t smile. My smiles don’t make people relax.”

“I’m not a politician, even though I play-act one when the boss tells me to—I’m allowed to change my mind when my understanding of the facts changes.”

“You know what? Don’t even worry about it,” I said. “Cory Wheeler already asked me. I can tell him I changed my mind.”
“Who the hell is Corky Wheeler?”

“The Unwanted Visitor visits those who don’t change and those who do. But those who did change can say: 'My life was an interesting one. I didn’t squander my blessing.’”

“Sometimes the Universe smiled. Mostly she kicked me in the face, stomped on my ribs once I fell down, and laughed at my pain, but once in a while she smiled.”

“She spilled rice on my knee, and she smiled. I wanted her to spill a thousand things on me, lava, acid, bricks, anything, and smile each time”