“Someone once told me that we move when it becomes less painful than staying where we are".”

“Life has a way of going in circles. Ideally, it would be a straight path forward––we'd always know where we were going, we'd always be able to move on and leave everything else behind. There would be nothing but the present and the future. Instead, we always find ourselves where we started. When we try to move ahead, we end up taking a step back. We carry everything with us, the weight exhausting us until we want to collapse and give up. We forget things we try to remember. We remember things we'd rather forget. The most frightening thing about memory is that it leaves no choice. It has mastered an incomprehensible art of forgetting. It erases, it smudges, it fills in blank spaces with details that don't exist. But however we remember it––or choose to remember it––the past is the foundation that holds our lives in place. Without its support, we'd have nothing for guidance. We spend so much time focused on what lies ahead, when what has fallen behind is just as important. What defines us isn't where we're going, but where we've been. Although there are places and people we will never see again, and although we move on and let them go, they remain a part of who we are. There are things that will never change, things we will carry along with us always. But as we venture into the murky future, we must find our strength by learning to leave things behind.”

“If we stay where we are, where we're stuck, where we're comfortable and safe, we die there... When nothing new can get in, that's death.”

“...when we say we're looking for a spiritual adviser, we're really looking for someone to tell us what to do with our bodies. Decisions of the flesh. We forget to learn from pleasure as well as pain.”

“I must console him for the distance we have moved from the place where he stopped.”

“You never really heard anything about Humpty when he was whole; only that he was broken, irreparable.”

“[In an interview when asked about becoming a fantasy creature] You know, it might be fun to be Sanguinarius Meyerii (better known as “sparklers”). They have all of the vampire superpowers and almost none of the weaknesses: no burning up in sunlight, no vulnerability to garlic, etc. As for my demise, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Once I get this kind of power, I’m planning to live forever. It’s the only way I’ll catch up on my reading!”