“A hard truth: that courage can be without meaning or impact, need not be rewarded, or even known. The world has not been made in that way. Perhaps, however, within the self there might come a resonance, the awareness of having done something difficult, of having done . . . something.”

“Courage is accepting your fear and doing whatever needs to be done anyway. Cowards are people who can't face up to their fear and let it get the better of them. There's always a place for courage. There's always something that can be done. You might not see it right away. Sooner or later something comes to mind that can help you through it. You make up your mind that it's okay to be afraid and you are going to be all right. Then you do what has to be done. That's courage.”

“Maybe it was for the best that she'd been so foolish, for if she'd known how hard this would be, perhaps she wouldn't have done it.”

“You did something because it had always been done, and the explanation was, ‘But we’ve always done it this way.’ A million dead people can’t have been wrong, can they?”

“It’s difficult to stop loving someone, even when they have done something that you once thought unforgivable. There isn’t an on off switch for love.”

“You can't dwell on what might have been...and it's not fair to condemn him for something he hasn't done.”