“What we all have discovered together, only rarely in classrooms, is that the passage of years guarantees very little in the way of answers, that ambivalence and ambiguity will follow us all the days of our lives, but that words and wit and woods and food and music will endure as sources of comfort.We have learned that surprises exhilarate, if they don’t barrage us too fast, and that the quest for the proper balances between stillness and motion, restraint and excess, sound and silence, will continue, and that too much freedom—a life too much at large…can feel at least as constricting as too little. We have learned, maybe most importantly of all, to cherish the company of those who can make us laugh, who can forgive us our shortcomings, who can restore to us or evoke in us a feeling of purpose in the face of absurdity.”

“A child's body is so much a part of who they are; maybe because we can hold a little boy in our arms. We can hold the whole of him. But when we grow too large to be held our body no longer defines us”

“Maybe only parts of our stories can keep us safe. The whole can feel like too much to bear.”

“If we are all going to have tragedies, if none of us can escape them, then surely we have to learn from them, we have to gain something. And we have to use what we have gained. Those of us who have fought tooth and nail to overcome tragedy are, after all, nothing else, proof that such things can be survived. So we can actually help others survive their tragedies too. As long as they’ll let us.”

“Sometimes the people who don’t know us very well make better mirrors. Too often, our friends feel they have to stand off to the side so they can protect us from the hurt of seeing our true selves.”

“We can fend off loneliness by being accessible to those around us who are different from us… too often we try to befriend only those who reassure us of the status quo, who are exactly like us, and who may not contribute as significantly to our growth and balance. This is a wide wonderful world. Be open to all the friends and associates it has to offer.”