“He believed that life, true life, was something that was stored in music. True life was kept safe in the lines of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin while you went out in the world and met the obligations required of you. Certainly he knew (though did not completely understand) that opera wasn't for everyone, but for everyone he hoped there was something. The records he cherished, the rare opportunities to see a live performance, those were the marks by which he gauged his ability to love.”

“They're just words, he told himself, they don't matter. But he knew that wasn't completely true. The words themselves were only part of the problem; the worst part was what the words conveyed. They told everyone that Michael was someone who should be singled out because he was...sick and repulsive. He had heard those words all his life, but each time was like the first, a jagged knife cutting through innocence. He simply didn't know how much longer he could take it.”

“Some things were certain - they had already happened - but the future could not be divined. Perhaps by Ida Paine. For everyone else, the future was no ally. A person had only his life to barter with. He felt that way. He could lose himself... or trade what he had for something he cared about. That rare thing. Either way, his life would be spent.”

“This boy," he said, indicating the paintings with one sweep of his arms, "was romantic. He thought that it was beauty that bound everything together. And for him it was true. Life had been beautiful for him. He was very young. He knew very little of life. He saw beauty but he did not feel any true passion. How could he? He did not know. He had not really encountered the force of beauty's opposite.""Are you more cynical now, then?" she asked him."Cynical," he frowned, "No, not that. I know that there is an ugly side of life-and not just human life. I know that everything is not simply beautiful. I am not a romantic as this boy was. But I am not a cynic either. There is something enduring in all of life, Anne, something tough. Something. Something terribly weak yet incredibly powerful...”

“I think that when you live in a world with limits... when you've met everyone and seem everything you're going to see - you lose the hope that something extraordinary will happen in your life”

“Rafe made people find something in themselves...(he) made me dream, he saw what I could hope to be, and helped me hope it. He did that to everyone he knew - especially the ones he knew the best." - Danny”