“We want what we can't have. It's human nature.”

“We risk losing what nature is if we couch its value in human terms.”

“We all want things we can't have. Being a decent human being is accepting that.”

“... we chase after ghosts and spirits and are left holding only memories and dreams. It's not that we want what we can't have; it's that we've held all we could want and then had to watch it slip away.”

“It seemed to Caleb, the nature of human being revolved around one empirical truth: we want what we cannot have. For Eve, it was the fruit of the forbidden tree. For Caleb, it was Livvie.”

“Human beings are remarkable - at what we can learn to live with. If we couldn't get strong from what we lose, and what we miss, and what we want and can't have, then we couldn't ever get strong enough, could we? What else makes us strong?”