“That was the splendid thing about life: Though it was cruel, it was also mysterious, filled with wonder and surprise; sometimes the surprises were so amazing that they qualified as miraculous, and by witnessing those miracles, a despondent person could discover a reason to live, a cynic could obtain unexpected relief from ennui, and a profoundly wounded boy could find the will to heal himself and medicine for melancholy.”

“That was a funny thing about friends, Marylin thought. You could know a person practically your whole life and she could still surprise you.”

“I was recalling that other world in which it had thrilled me, in a way, the surprise of thinking that I could be a person who would betray Daniel. Now I wondered if Daniel could surprise himself, could surprise me, by being such a person too. Would he let himself do such a thing? I didn’t think so. And then I wondered: Is it by will, then, that we are who we are? Do we decide, do we make ourselves, after a certain point in life?I tried to call up the moment when I had decided I could be such a person. It seemed to me I hadn’t quite got there, not really. That I was still just playing with the idea of it when the ground shifted under me. But perhaps to play with such an idea was already to be a certain kind of person.”

“Life is so extraordinary. Wonderful surprises are just around the most unexpected corners.”

“If there were any plan in the universe at all, if there were any pattern in human life, surely it could be discovered mysteriously latent in those lives so suddenly cut off. Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan.”

“Sometimes mistakes could be turned into something unexpected and wonderful.”