“The broken heart. You think you will die, but you just keep living, day after day after terrible day.”

“You smile at the extravagance of your dream, and yet you feel that this tissue of absurdity contained some real idea, something that belongs to your true life,—something that exists, and has always existed, in your heart. You search your dream for some prophecy that you were expecting.”

“[…] a deep sadness took possession of me. ‘How many thousands of days have I to pass like this one?’”

“Do you understand, do you understand, my dear sir, what it means when there is no longer anywhere to go?”

“Like so many Americans she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.”

“You breathe by the sun, I breathe by the moon,”

“It’s mortifying to be the one who remembers.”

“We are homesick most for the places we have never known.”

“Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal.”

“It wasn’t my day. My week. My month. My year. My life. God damn it.”

“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.”

“My brother used to ask the birds to forgive him; that sounds senseless but it is right; for all is like the ocean, all things flow and touch each other; a disturbance in one place is felt at the other end of the world.”