“...stories break silence and nourish those who work, feel, and dream.From Costa Rica: A Traveler's Literary Companion”

“1. Live now. Be concerned with the present rather than with past or future. 2. Live here. Deal with what is present rather than with what is absent. 3. Stop imagining. Experience the real. 4. Stop unnecessary thinking. Rather, taste and see. 5. Express rather than manipulate, explain, justify, or judge. 6. Give in to unpleasantness and pain just as to pleasure. Do not restrict your awareness. 7. Accept no should or ought other than your own. Adore no graven image. 8. Take full responsibility for your actions, feelings, and thoughts. 9. Surrender to being as you are.”

“I was realizing, for the first time, that everything goes on, turns gray, is ruined in the living. That there is no end to our story until death comes and the body decays...”

“What a relief to be away from the stares of those extraordinary beings!”

“And where does that minute go, that minute that separates life from death? I want those sixty seconds back.”

“Friendships are the most important thing you can have in your life. Sometimes they have their ups and downs. Sometimes it's your fault and sometimes it's not. But the key to handling those ups and downs is to remember that good friends will always find their way back to each other.”

“Oppression can only survive through silence.”