“Things begin, things end. Just when we seem to arrive at a quiet place, we are swept up, suddenly, between the body's smoothe, functioning predictability, and the need for disruption. We do irrational things, outrageous things. Or else something will come along and intervene, an unimaginable foe.”

“I will have nothing to do with a God who cares only occasionally. I need a God who is with us always, everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the highest heights. It is when things go wrong, when good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present. We do not need the sheltering wings when things go smoothly. We are closest to God in the darkness, stumbling along blindly.”

“For ever and ever, we say when we are young, or in our prayers. Twice, we say it. Old One, do we not? For ever and ever ... so that a thing may be for ever, a life or a love or a quest, and yet begin again, and be for ever just as before. And any ending that may seem to come is not truly an ending, but an illusion. For Time does not die, Time has neither beginning nor end, and so nothing can end or die that has once had a place in Time.”

“He wondered if such things were born into people. If perhaps we cannot alter who we are - if the place we come from dictates the place we will end up.”

“We all think we're different, but when it comes around, we end up needing the same things. Somebody to love us. Somebody to respect us.”

“We start out in these things from the same places, the fast and the slow. We pass along the same stages: excitement, enchantment, dispute, anger, reconciliation, love. And the end of love. We pass these same stages, unevenly paced, until at last, everything exhausted, we arrive at a place marked I just don't care anymore.”