“The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.”

“Suffering happens when we expect life to be something more and different than what it is in the present moment. When we let go of all expectations, there is peace.”

“If we were in a film, the villain would turn out to be the least-expected person. But as we aren’t in a film, I’d go for the character who tried to strangle you.”

“She thought for a moment, then said, “When we are young, we think life will be like a su po: one fabric, one weave, one grand design. But in truth, life turns out to be more like the patchwork cloths--bits and pieces, odds and ends--people, places, things we never expected, never wanted, perhaps. There is harmony in this, too, and beauty. I suppose that is why I like the chogak po.”

“When we travel, we are like a film at the moment of exposure; it is memory that will develop it.”

“He said, ‘The moment I began to love you was the moment when you saw your fiddle smashed on the ground, and you turned away from me and cried against your horse. Your sadness is one of the things that makes you beautiful to me. Don’t you see that? I understand it. It makes my own sadness less frightening.”