“Isolated, she managed somehow to feel free—albeit with a freedom that made her want to smash a hole in the very center of the universe.”

“She was alone in the stillness of the universe a little while before all the confusion began. It was if she could hear it ticking, check in on the life at the very center of it, its wellspring that everyone somehow knows, before it was covered by noise.”

“She wanted to feel him pound away her fears, a hammer to smash through all her guilt and pain and emptiness.”

“The person with a secular mentality feels himself to be the center of the universe. Yet he is likely to suffer from a sense of meaninglessness and insignificance because he knows he’s but one human among five billion others - all feeling themselves to be the center of things - scratching out an existence on the surface of a medium-sized planet circling a small star among countless stars in a galaxy lost among countless galaxies. The person with the sacred mentality, on the other hand, does not feel herself to be the center of the universe. She considers the Center to be elsewhere and other. Yet she is unlikely to feel lost or insignificant precisely because she draws her significance and meaning from her relationship, her connection, with that center, that Other.”

“Somehow he managed to look cool despite the heat. It made Clary want to smack him.”

“Through recognizing and realizing the empty essence, instead of being selfish and self-centered, one feels very open and free”