“I had the strange desire for a giant butterfly net to catch whatever was out there, as if it could be captured so easily.”

“Nothing could be purged without a body—no crying, no exertion, no pills to take away the pain or calm me down. Nothing. Instead, something ballooned inside me until I felt like I might explode. All I could do was sit there and drown in it, wondering why Claire affected me so much, wondering if she always would.”

“It looked like a ghost had dressed up the forest in tulle.”

“What do I want? I want lots of things, just like everybody else. Problem is, we can’t really have what we want, can we?”

“I felt much better shut up inside my self-made pity cocoon instead of faking happiness in front of the world.”

“It was terrifying to realize life goes on without you.”

“What is the nature of the search? you ask. Really it is very simple, at least for a fellow like me; so simple that it is easily overlooked. The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. This morning, for example, I felt as if I had come to myself on a strange island. And what does such a cast away do? Why he pokes around the neighborhood and he doesn't miss a trick. To become aware of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.”