Art imitating life, yet again

Rico says he wrote this in his novel Skeleton Cay, back in 2007, and it was true even before his little near-death experience in 2006:

The lesson, of course, was the unutterable poignancy of life itself. We spend our lives like we spend money, thoughtless of the coins, careless of the dollars, little knowing that, at any moment, we could lose everything. So now I caress each minute like it was a shiny new Lincoln penny before I spend it, knowing, some day in the not-too-distant future, I will reach into my pocket and come up short.