“To recognize understand and learn how to protect a new ecosystem requires much more time and attention than it does to exploit and destroy one.”

“Do you ever think that people who find it tougher to say what they're feeling are the ones who feel things more intensely? As if they're the ones who really understand what it means to love someone? As if they have to keep their defenses high, because they care too much and have too much to lose?”

“Everybody does stupid things in life. Some of us more than others. You think you're going to get away with it. Or one or both of you just stop thinking. But it happens. And when it does, you can keep drinking it like poison, or you can put it behind you and go make the most of the rest of your life.”

“It's so much easier to point a finger than to take responsibility yourself, isn't it? Maybe it isn't so simple as this person's fault or that one. Maybe we make up the dance together, as we go along, and no one knows what the result will be.”

“How shall I ever learn who I am when there is so much of me that belongs to someone else?”

“Knowing a large proportion of your fellow citizens was one thing; but when you recognized each other’s pets by name, you knew you’d never get a Red Lobster.”

“I had discovered something; there was a pleasure in becoming something new. You could will yourself into a fresh shape. Now all I had to do was figure out how to do it out there, in my life.”