“His conviction that everything happened for a reason, and would come to good, gave him laughing equanimity even in hard times.”

“What would happen if you stopped fighting, and gave yourself permission to feel? Not just the good things, but everything?”

“Everybody dies. There’s nothing you can do about it. Whether or not you eat six almonds a day. Whether or not you believe in God. (Although there’s no question a belief in God would come in handy. It would be great to think there’s a plan, and that everything happens for a reason. I don’t happen to believe that. And every time one of my friends says to me, “Everything happens for a reason,” I would like to smack her.)”

“Yet none of these things gave him confidence. All they gave him was egotism, which is less the conviction of one's worth than the desire for that conviction.”

“Everything happens for a reason, Sadie, even bad things.”

“I feel I am on a high. For the first time in a very long while I have a feeling that anything can happen. This morning I woke up thinking everything could happen, that things would just come to me, and that they would be good.”