“As I was coming to see, life makes its own calendar, and if you're wise, that's the one you follow.”

“That's how it is for me, thinking about the future. Two different shapes. One holding time; the other escaping it. One suggesting fragility, confinement; the other, something transcendent. Turn it one way, you see an hourglass. Turn it the other way, and you see wings.”

“And even if she were, even if we had our answer, whatever it was, what would we do with it? How would we fit it into the shaped poem we try to assemble of our lives? Would we see an hourglass or wings?”

“I know that I need to be completely immersed in it for the rest of my life. And that's probably enough for me to make it.”

“Sometimes it is the sharp contrasts in life, the bitter and the sweet; things not working out as planned, relationships falling apart, losing your loved ones—these are the things that shake you and make you appreciate life, see the good in it and love anew the people around you.”

“In case you didn't know, dead people don't bleed. If you can bleed-see it, feel it-then you know you're alive. It's irrefutable, undeniable proof. Sometimes I just need a little reminder.”

“Isn't that how it is when you must decide with your heart? You are not just choosing one thing over another. You are choosing what you want. And you are also choosing what somebody else does not want, and all the consequences that follow. You can tell yourself, That's not my problem, but those words do not wash the trouble away. Maybe it is no longer a problem in your life. But it is always a problem in your heart.”