“Once in a while I experience an emotion onstage that is so gut-wrenching, so heart-stopping, that I could weep with gratitude and joy. The feeling catches and magnifies so rapidly that it threatens to engulf me.”

“He taught me to stand up for what I believe in, to shout it out at the top of my lungs.  He taught me to feel—the deep, gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, soul-singing kind of emotion I had avoided for so long.  He taught me about the importance of life.  He taught me about the beauty of death.  He also taught me about love.”

“He was a breath of fresh air after the heart wrenching storm that had engulfed me.”

“Somewhere at the back of my head I heard a click, tiny and irrevocable. Memory magnifies it to a wrenching, echoing crack, but the truth is that it was the very smallness that made it so terrible.”

“It was as if the rare joy that had formed in my heart was replaced by a pale shadow threatening to engulf me at that very moment. Victory didn’t matter now. She did!”

“The glass doors stared back at me like a secret passageway, moonlight filtering in and adding to the effect. I swallowed again, my heart pounding. What an exhilarating emotion this was. Exhilarating and terrifying. Nothing had ever made me feel so overwhelmed, so ethereal. Of all the new mysteries in my life, this was the most wrenching. Everything would change now, I knew. (Lily from Seers of Light)”