“What is heartbreaking is that there is still beauty in the world.”

“Each day, the world is made fresh again, holy, and she takes it in, in all its raw intensity, like a young child. She feels something bloom in her chest—joy or grief, eventually they are inseparable. The world is so acutely beautiful, for all its horrors, that she will be sorry to leave it.”

“You're unusual. That's better than popular if you have some courage.”

“She is leaving him, not all at once, which would be painful enough, but in a wrenching succession of separations. One moment she is here, and then she is gone again, and each journey takes her a little farther from his reach. He cannot follow her, and he wonders where she goes when she leaves.”

“The world is beautiful and glorious. Humanity can be mean, and turn away from what's good.”

“Livia, you make the rest of the beautiful things in the world cry for even trying at all.”

“Some lives, conducted with grace, are beautiful arcs bridging this world to eternity.”