“Optimism is when you're not sure where life is going to take you, so naturally you anticipate the best possible outcome”

“Since he knew things at the beginning, maybe at the end he knew things too. That we had gone as far as chance would take us. That nothing is more sacred than youth or more hopeful than turning yourself over to someone and saying ~ I have this time, it is not a long time, but it is my best time and my best gift, and I give it to you. When I revisit my youth, I re-visit you.”

“When you lose your parents as a child, you are indoctrinated into a club, you re taken into life's severest confidence. You are undeceived.”

“Sometimes a day is a symbolic day, and you behave symbolically. Sometimes you search inside for a feeling, and, finding none, you remember that no feeling is frequently the most possible feeling.”

“Sometimes the best you can do is your small part, perfectly”

“Mine is not a smiling face. Strangers on the street always say, Smile! But my muscles do not naturally go there.”

“Kindness is everything . . . When you receive it and express it, it becomes the whole meaning of things. It's life, demystified. A place out of self. Not a waltz, the the whirls within a waltz.”