“Without hesitation but with a sense of entitlement, he lifted my hand to his lips. He was gentlemen-like in every way... I don’t know why I wondered if it was an act or for real.”

“I was taught to strive not because there were any guarantees of success but because the act of striving is in itself the only way to keep faith with life.”

“I have spent a lifetime looking for remedies to all manner of life's problems -- personal, social, political, global. I am deeply suspicious of those who offer simple solutions and statements of absolute certainty or who claim full possession of the truth. Yet I have grown equally skeptical of those who suggest that all is too nuanced and complex for us to learn any lessons, that there are so many sides to every thing that we can pursue knowledge every day of our lives and still know nothing for sure. I believe we can recognize truth when we see it, just not a first and not without ever relenting in our efforts to learn more. This is because the goal we seek, and the good we hope for, comes not as some final reward but as the hidden companion to our quest. It is not what we find, but the reason we cannot stop looking and striving, that tells us why we are here.”

“He strained his ears, and the darkness felt heavier than before. Oppressive.“We’re hungry.” That came from behind him.“They smell tasty,” a voice to his left hissed.“I don’t like this,” Andrew said, feeling like the world around them was spinning with voices, taunting, echoing them.“I don’t like this,” a voice parroted. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this. I don’t like this.”

“When Dad was in the middle of a description of the hotel’s laundry facility, I interrupted. “Why haven’t you told me today, like you do every day, that Mom’s going to be better soon?”He looked up then. His gaze locked with mine and held a promise that no matter what he said or didn’t say, he and I would ride this out together. “I haven’t told you that today, Meg, because I don’t know.”

“I couldn't take my eyes off him. Like a desert wanderer afraid of mirages, I gazed at my oasis, but he was real.”

“Tears glinted in her eyes. "I want no secrets between us, Silas." "No secrets," he echoed, his mouth near the gentle curve of her ear. "Then you should know I can hardly breathe for thinking of you. You're the most maddening lass I've ever known, and every day without you near is an agony to me." Taking her face between his hands, he moved to kiss her, but the sound of approaching horses gave him pause.”