But people — the ordinary, the decent and basically honest — couldn't get through the day without that one indispensable bit of programming that allo… - Gabrielle Zevin

E. A. Poe defines a short story as readable in a single sitting. I imagine a “single sitting” was longer back in his day. But I digress again.

Why are the cute ones always such sociopaths?
"Win doesn't seem like so much of a sociopath," I replied without thinking.
"Oh, really? So, you think he's cute, do you? At least you're admitting it now."
I shook my head. Scarlet was incorrigible.
"Admitting it is the first step, Annie.

How much of your life had been happenstance? How much of your life had been a roll of the big polyhedral die in the sky? But then, weren't all lives that way? Who could say, in the end, that they had chosen any of it?