“Haven't we all, as time continues, found that we must be kind to ourselves and listen to our thoughts, because fewer and fewer of those remain who know what is most real to us?”

“For each of us, he understood, is born into our own time and eventually the things we held as the center of our world, dearly, unforgivingly, must fade.”

“The people who matter the most to us in the end, who teach us the most, are the people who make their worst mistakes with us.”

“Who would one rather be? The one who desires, or the object of desire? One's answer to this question might determine if he is meant to be a poet or something else entirely.”

“For it is through humility, he knew, that holiness--and poetry--find entrance to the human soul.”

“Inadequate love is love. Unrequited love is love.”

“She'll be an excellent novelist: a monster of self-absorption.”