Sentenced to Death

Take a sentence from a writer you admire or who provokes strong feelings in your gut. Preferably, this should be a fairly long sentence with a lot of different words in it. Use any of the words and only those words (repeating words from the sentence as often as you want) to make up fifteen sentences of your own—adhering around a character or situation that seems related to the author of this sentence, but it need not be a direct response to the author. This is a very difficult exercise, but you may find a handful of crucial ideas about your character from the struggle of coming up with these sentences. The word length of this exercise depends on how long each of these fifteen sentences is, but will probably be about 200 words.
(from prompt #38 in The 3AM Epiphany)

Read my response:

"As long as you don't let your exhaustion get to you, as long as you remember that you always have choices, as long as you're willing to read the book and see where it's taking you, as long as you love the book and the sum total of things that have brought you to this place, right now, this very second, you'll stay
afloat."
-Jacob Clifton, TelevisionWithoutPity

Remember the exhaustion the choices brought? You don’t have that exhaustion now, you have love. The right love, and the right place, and you’re willing to stay. And as long as you’re willing to stay, you get to see this love taking place. You don’t have to remember the choices, right?

It’s the things you don’t remember, the choices and the exhaustion, that you have to remember. The very things. The things that brought you to this love, always remember.

You read a book, you remember the total book. You don’t read a long book and have the love stay afloat; you have to have things taking place. The things taking place that you’re willing to read, you have to be willing to remember.

Second place choices, you don’t have to always remember, as long as you remember choices taking place. And don’t let exhaustion stay where you’re willing to have love. Always stay willing to have love.