“So can you say life is senseless and cruel or you can make a stand and try to impose your own meaning and values on it?”

“I'm not going to pretend to know what's going on with you," he says. "But if you senselessly risk your life again -- ""I am not senselessly risking my life. I am trying to make sacrifices, like my parents would have, like -- ""You are not your parents You are a sixteen-year-old girl --"I grit my teeth. "How dare you -- ""-- who doesn't understand that the value of a sacrifice lies in its necessity, not in throwing your life away! And if you do that again, you and I are done.”

“I mean, say that you figure that everything is senseless, then it can't be quite senseless because you are aware that it's senseless and your awareness of senselessness almost gives it sense. You know what I mean?”

“Time is cruel like life. It slows down so that you can truly experience the worst moments of it. Only if you make it through them do you get to say ‘It all happened so fast.”

“Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.”

“See with your own eyes, hear with your own ears, think your own thoughts, say what you must say, do what you must do, love all that you can and stand on your own two feet.”