“He believed in dreams, in endings that people told you could never happen, in disappointments reversed and luck that lasted.”

“What you are able to dream you are able to grow, she says to me. If you don't believe in it, it can never happen.”

“What you dream, you can grow. Someone told me that, but I didn't believe it. I said I had nothing and that people with nothing are unable to dream. But I was wrong.”

“Young people believe that regret is something you will never feel if you simply do as you please, but sometimes it is a matter of degree.”

“In the last few months, she'd had a lot of time to consider the state of mankind, and she'd decided that people actually had very few choices in their lives. Most things happened to you. Most things rolled right over you and then kept on going.”

“They say that dogs may dream, and when Topsy was old, his feet would move in his sleep. With his eyes closed he would often make a noise that sounded quite human, as if greeting someone in his dreams. At first it seemed that he believed Sara would return, but as the years went by I understood that his loyalty asked for no reward, and that love comes in unexpected forms. His wish was small, as hers had been -- merely to be beside her. As for me, I already knew I would never get what I wanted.”

“My grandmother told me once that when you lose somebody you think you've lost the whole world as well, but that's not the way things turn out in the end. Eventually, you pick yourself up and look out the window, and once you do you see everything that was there before the world ended is out there still. There are the same apple trees and the same songbirds, and over our heads, the very same sky that shines like heaven, so far above us we can never hope to reach such heights.”