“Most people weren’t aware enough to fear the things that could really hurt them.”

“Fear was the knowledge of pain, the awareness that you could be hurt, that you could die.”

“The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn't live boldly enough, that they didn't invest enough heart, didn't love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.”

“People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren’t, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly.”

“My mind felt numb, like I couldn't really grasp the hurtful things that I had just recently learned. I was well aware that it was my body's defense mechanism. Shock always did that to a person...enveloped them in a cocoon of decreased sensitivity to allow them to process their hurt.”

“The US is at a point where just when the people imagine things can’t get any worse, they realize their imaginations weren’t big enough.”