“The way fire moves, it consumes you. It's so beautiful you want to touch it but you know you can't. I think that's part of its draw.”

“We're taught to love only a few people. We think it's this sacred resource, like we'll run out of it at some point. But the more you love, the more it's returned to you. Hands down. You can't argue with that.""Maybe," I say. "Or maybe you stop giving it so freely because one day it's taken away and it hurts so much, you need to protect yourself."She know what I'm referring to. "Until you realize love's the only think worth living for in the first place.”

“It's dying," I say. "When the center is exposed like that, it doesn't have a chance.""But it's beautiful," she points out, I stare at the shriveling cactus and try to see the beauty in it."That's the way I want to go out," she decides."What?" I ask. "Torn up and ripped open?"She shakes her head. "Totally exposed, with no regrets. You can tell this cactus lived; it has the battle scars to prove it. Why go out looking perfect and put together? It means you didn't experience anything. You didn't take any risks.”

“Because that's the point, nothing is ever permanent. We're just being brainwashed to think there isn't more out there. Here's the truth: your situation is never permanent. It's what you make it. Life isn't solid, it's fluid. It changes. You say we're stuck but that's a hopeless way to look at it. It's like saying we should give up.”

“Life should be a risk. It's more than a straight line that you can see clearly from one point to the other. It dips and curves and you never know what's around the bend sometimes until you get there. That scares a lot of people. But that's the beauty of it.”

“You know, there are so many things you can't control in life, like whathappens to you or how people are going to react to what you do.It's wasted energy to worry about it. But you can control how youreact. That's the trick.”

“Knowledge can hurt because you can't turn away from thingsanymore. You can't pretend you're blind to what's happening," hesaid. "It's a lot easier to ignore something you don't want to acceptthan to face it.”