“But life isn't something that should be edited. Life shouldn't be cut. The only way you'll ever discover what it truly means to be alive and human is by sharing the full experience of what it means to be human and each blemish and freckle that comes with it.”

“I keep thinking you already know. I keep thinking I’ve sent you letters that were only ever written in my mind.”

“The conversation between your fingers and someone else’s skin. This is the most important discussion you can ever have.”

“And when I asked you how you’d been, I meant I missed you more than I’ve ever missed anything before.”

“Joan of Arc came back as a little girl in Japan, and her father told her to stop listening to her imaginary friends.Elvis was born again in a small village in Sudan, he died hungry, age 9, never knowing what a guitar was.Michelangelo was drafted into the military at age 18 in Korea, he painted his face black with shoe polish and learned to kill.Jackson Pollock got told to stop making a mess, somewhere in Russia.Hemingway, to this day, writes DVD instruction manuals somewhere in China. He’s an old man on a factory line. You wouldn’t recognise him.Gandhi was born to a wealthy stockbroker in New York. He never forgave the world after his father threw himself from his office window, on the 21st floor.And everyone, somewhere, is someone, if we only give them a chance.”

“Yet you still value the things you’ve lost the most. Because the things you’ve lost are still perfect in your head. They never rusted. They never broke. They are made of the memories you once had, which only grow rosier and brighter, day by day. They are made of the dreams of how wonderful things could have been and must never suffer the indignity of actually still existing. Of being real. Of having flaws. Of breaking and deteriorating. Only the things you no longer have will always be perfect.”

“Either it's a bad thing to enjoy life, in other words, to experience pleasure - in which case you shouldn't help anyone to do it, but should try to save the whole human race from such a frightful fate - or else, if it's good for other people, and you're not only allowed, but positively obliged to make it possible for them, why shouldn't charity begin at home?”