“What's important is being attentive. Staying calm, being alert to things around you.”

“...what was important, what mattered, was not the fact of being afraid, but what you did, the choices you made, when you were afraid. And maybe that was something to do with being alive--or staying dead.”

“Loneliness does not come from having no people around you, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to you.”

“When everything around you is crazy, it is ingenious to stay calm.”

“Knowing ... that the struggle to create a different current reality is to no avail helps keep the attention present even when experience is painful. ... the same wisdom that keeps the attention alert and present in painful circumstances includes the awareness ... that human beings feel about things, that we lament or yearn or grieve even when we understand that things can't be different. [p. 33]”

“The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.”