“summer, after all, is a time when wonderful things can happen to quiet people. for those few months, you’re not required to be who everyone thinks you are, and that cut-grass smell in the air and the chance to dive into the deep end of a pool give you a courage you don’t have the rest of the year. you can be grateful and easy, with no eyes on you, and no past. summer just opens the door and lets you out.”

“When you’re in love you don’t have to do a damn thing. You can just be. You can just stay quiet in the world. You don’t have to move an inch.”

“Sometimes when you read a book or watch a TV show, you see the people and you think, Don’t do that. Don’t open that door. Don’t answer that phone. You know everything is about to change. “Stop!” you want to say. “Rewrite the story. Rewind the tape. Don’t let it happen that way.” But you can’t. The people always open the door or answer the phone. The bad thing always happens, and there is nothing you can do about it.”

“I can dive", Sophia said. "Do you know what it feels like when you dive?"Of course I do," her grandmother said. "You let go of everything and get ready and just dive. You can feel the seaweed against your legs. It's brown, and the water's clear, lighter towards the top, with lots of bubbles. And you glide. You hold your breath and glide and turn and come up, let yourself rise and breathe out. And then you float. Just float."And all the time with your eyes open," Sophia said.Naturally. People don't dive with their eyes shut."Do you believe I can dive without me showing you?" the child asked.Yes, of course", Grandmother said.”

“The past is a curious thing. It’s with you all the time. I suppose an hour never passes without your thinking of things that happened ten or twenty years ago, and yet most of the time it’s got no reality, it’s just a set of facts that you’ve learned, like a lot of stuff in a history book. Then some chance sight or sound or smell, especially smell, sets you going, and the past doesn’t merely come back to you, you’re actually IN the past. It was like that at this moment.”

“Be grateful for what you have now. As you begin to think about all the things in your life you are grateful for, you will be amazed at the never ending thoughts that come back to you of more things to be grateful for. You have to make a start, and then the law of attraction will receive those grateful thoughts and give you more just like them.”