“The fantastic breaks the crust of appearance … something grabs us by the shoulders to throw us outside ourselves. I have always known that the big surprises await us where we have learned to be surprised by nothing, that is, where we are not shocked by ruptures in the order.”

“We suffer the threat of breathing in water; we fight the nightmares that would drown us. And just as we feel the deceptive joy of floating, we flex our muscles and learn to kick, propelling ourselves into deeper waters where we can't see the bottom or touch the side.There, in the deep, we stroke. Then, surprising ourselves, saving ourselves, we swim. ”

“There is something in us that keeps us where we find ourselves. I think this is the most awful thing of all.”

“Life takes us by surprise and orders us to move toward the unknown -even when we don't want to and when we think we don't need to.”

“Let this night remind us to celebrate love, whenever it comes, in whatever form it appears, however enduring or fleeting it may be. For whether we search for love or are surprised by it, it always transforms us in ways we never expect.”

“You're no different than the rest of us, Victor. We all see ourselves as this dissatisfied thing, this ego, looking outside ourselves for just that one other thing that will make us complete. That job, that lover, that pot of money. Even enlightenment, as if that too is a thing we can grab hold of to complete what needs completing. There is always something, we believe, that will make us whole. But if you take a finite thing, like body and mind, and look for something outside it to make it complete, something like money or love or faith, what you are seeking is also just a finite thing. So you have a finite thing reaching for the infinite by grabbing for some other finite thing and you end up with nothing more than a deeper sense of dissatisfaction.”