“The hollowness in his chest, the tense yearning, the loneliness he braces against, every morning until he can immerse himself in work and forget. Not love. Something else, something with a power that endures. Not love, but a memory of love.”

“Man is originally characterized by his "search for meaning" rather than his "search for himself." The more he forgets himself—giving himself to a cause or another person—the more human he is. And the more he is immersed and absorbed in something or someone other than himself the more he really becomes himself.”

“He pressed his lips against hers and closing his own eyes, ignoring the pain in his side, and the uncertainty in his chest he mouthed,‘I love my Princess. I love my Jocelyn. Love you and only you from now until forever.”

“In his fantasy, he kissed his best friend again, pulled back, and… “I love you,” he said into the spray of the shower. “I… love you.” As he closed his eyes against the pain, it was hard to know how much of what ran down his cheeks was water, and how much was something else.”

“He wanted to tell her that he was inspired and vigilant and recklessly alone, that his body contained his unsteady heart and something else, something he felt but could not describe: porous and spiky, shifting with flecks of thought, with urge and memory; salted with brightness, flickerings of white and green and pale gold; something that loved stars because it was made of the same substance.”

“If you can learn to endure pain, you can survive anything. Some people learn to embrace it—to love it. Some endure it through drowning it in sorrow, or by making themselves forget. Others turn it into anger. But Ansel let her pain become hate, and let it consume her until she became something else entirely—a person I don’t think she ever wished to be”