“Everyone calls him BlockheadNo one sings his praisesOr takes him to heart...That is the kind of personI want to be”

“We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey”

“No one has written adequately of what happens when enough of the body's naked surface is pressed against another human being's. It is a slow dismantling of ego, a suspension of the instinct to distinguish Me from Not Me.”

“Perhaps none of us assumes romantic love to be a birthright. Yet the confidence it will come surely admits of degrees. Growing up, I assumed I was the word that rhymed with none other-- like "silver" or "orange," glistering bright, but sonnet foiling, and always solitary traveling. Somewhere love happened, plausible as a catch of distant conversation. But not in the self's way.”

“But she was not even grateful to him for it; nothing good on Pierre's part seemed to her to be an effort, it seemed so natural for him to be kind to everyone that there was no merit in his kindness.”

“It was impossible not to admire him, not to want to do something to contain that kind of beauty- drink him, ingest him, sneak into his shirt and hide for the rest of one's natural life.”

“I wanted to touch him, to tell him that even if everyone left everyone, I would never leave him, he talked and talked, his words fell through him, trying to find the floor to his sadness.”