“Civilization, after all, is defined by what we forbid, more than what we permit.”

“I think the future is like anything else that's important. It has to be earned. If we don't earn it, we don't have a future at all. And if we don't earn it, we don't deserve it, we have to live in the present, more or less forever. Or worse, we have to live in the past. I think that's probably what love is - a way of earning the future.”

“At first, when we truly love someone, our greatest fear is that the loved one will stop loving us. What we should fear and dread, of course, is that we won't stop loving them, even after they're dead and gone.”

“Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears.”

“The strength and wildness and will that I found in him were more and better than all the truth and goodness in the world. I pledged myself to him as brother and friend no matter what he'd done and no matter what he was.”

“What we call cowardice is often just another name for being taken by surprise, and courage is seldom any better than simply being well prepared.”

“For this is what we do. Put one foot forward and then the other. Lift our eyes to the snarl and smile of the world once more. Think. Act. feel. Add our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world. Drag our shadowed crosses into the hope of another night. Push our brave hearts into the promise of a new day. With love; the passionate search for truth other than our own. With longing; the pure, ineffable yearning to be saved. For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on.”