“What do you know about sooner or later? Is a moment only a moment when you're in pain?”

“It was like that. Sometimes I'd go for a period—days or weeks—without feeling the full sweep of my loss, and then as unexpected as a thunderclap, the realization would rip the protective coating from my senses. Maybe that's the way it is with trick knees and aging griefs. Totally pain free one moment and absorbingly painful the next.”

“But will somebody please tell me what's a person to do when they're too afraid of life to live and too afraid of death to die?”

“But don't go thinking that I'm critical of you, Anton, because really I'm not. Not a bit! It's just that you're not here. I'm alone and I'm frightened and you're not here. And you're not ever going to be here for me.”

“All I know is that growing up hurts too much. Growing down is what I'd really like to do. Be little enough again so it would be perfectly natural to be protected from the wind and the rain—and the world.”

“Experiencing life through a book can help you learn without all the pain of going through the experiences first hand.”

“And taking care of somebody else made me feel good. Like discovering you're more than you thought you were. More even than you hoped to be. ”