“Life is a gift full of riddles in which suffering and happiness are inextricably intertwined. Any attempt to have one without the other was simply bound to fail.”

“Of course I am not referring to those outburts of passions that drive us to do and say things we will later regret, that delude us into thinking we cannot life without a certain person, that set us quivering with anxiety at the mere possibility we might ever lose that person-a feeling that impoverishes rather than enriches us because we long to possess what we cannot, to hold on what we cannot.No. I speak of a love that brings sight to the blind. Of a love stronger than fear. I speak of a love that breathes meaning into life, that defies the natural laws of deterioration, that causes us to flourish, that knows no bounds. I speak of the triumph of the human spirit over selfishness and death.”

“He expected nothing more from life. Not because he was disappointed or embittered. He expected nothing because there was nothing of importance that he had not already experienced. He possessed all the happiness that a person could find. He loved and was loved. Unconditionally.”

“And so there must be in life something like a catastrophic turning point, when the world as we know ceases to exist. A moment that transform us into a different person from one heartbeat to the next.”

“I am not without you, that you are with me from the moment I wake until the moment I fall asleep, that it's you when the wind caresses me, that it's your voice I hear in the silence, you whom I see when I close my eyes, you who make me laugh and sing when I know no one else is around.”

“I found this butterfly dead on our porch a few weeks ago. I have pressed it. It's one of those whose wing beats you loved best. You once said it reminded you of my heartbeat. None sounded sweeter.”

“Death is not the end of life, but a stage thereof.”