“You may have misery," she continued, ignoring my plea, "you may lose hope in the sorrow of an unplanned life but as long as you have faith and trust in adoration, in affection, in love, that sorrow will turn to happiness. And that is a constant, dear.”

“No one can know sincere happiness, Sophie, without first having known sorrow. One can never appreciate the enormity and rareness of such a fiery bliss without seeing misery, however unfair that may be.”

“But they have life and faith and hope and love and they choose those things. Their innocence is addicting, their hope is catching and I'm happy to be surrounded by them”

“They are funny little representatives of simplicity, of awareness. No one is more aware of themselves as these children are. They have nothing, have no one but us, have seemingly no reason to be hopeful...yet they are. They choose to be happy even though the obviously easier choice would be to be frightened or sad and they have real reason to be those things as well. But they have life and faith and hope and love and they choose those things. Their innocence is addicting, their hope is catching and I'm happy to be surrounded by them.”

“It’s like I’ve known you my entire life,”“I think, in some ways, we have. Only you could know what I’ve been through; the humiliation, the judgments, the unwanted pity and none of it at your doing. We may not have known each other our whole lives but we’ve definitely lived them in parallel.”

“I'd discovered that the sun equated happiness. Its bright and lovely existence was hope incarnate. It exposed the dark, brought forth the light and showed you that no matter how strong or oppressive the night was, that it was infinitely stronger, exponentially more substantial and just because you couldn't see it with your eyes, didn't mean it wasn't still with you, that you couldn't feel it or that it wouldn't come back for you. It was stalwart and constant. It was infinite.”

“You have no idea what you do to me. I've felt things for you these past few months that don't seem healthy. I've wanted you so desperately I'm afraid it may not be natural. You consume my thoughts, Sophie... You've arrested my senses and I can't seem to get enough of you. That's what scares me. I'm so deep there's no getting out for me. You own me, you know?”