“Competition isn't a bad thing. Somebody can always do it better and that somebody is you.”

“THE MEETING""Scant rain had fallen and the summer sunHad scorched with waves of heat the ripening corn,That August nightfall, as I crossed the downWork-weary, half in dream. Beside a fenceSkirting a penning’s edge, an old man waitedMotionless in the mist, with downcast headAnd clothing weather-worn. I asked his nameAnd why he lingered at so lonely a place.“I was a shepherd here. Two hundred seasonsI roamed these windswept downlands with my flock.No fences barred our progress and we’d travelWherever the bite grew deep. In summer droughtI’d climb from flower-banked combe to barrow’d hill-topTo find a missing straggler or set snaresBy wood or turmon-patch. In gales of MarchI’d crouch nightlong tending my suckling lambs.“I was a ploughman, too. Year upon yearI trudged half-doubled, hands clenched to my shafts,Guiding my turning furrow. Overhead,Cloud-patterns built and faded, many a songOf lark and pewit melodied my toil.I durst not pause to heed them, rising at dawnTo groom and dress my team: by daylight’s endMy boots hung heavy, clodded with chalk and flint.“And then I was a carter. With my skillI built the reeded dew-pond, sliced out hayFrom the dense-matted rick. At harvest time,My wain piled high with sheaves, I urged the horsesBack to the master’s barn with shouts and cursesBefore the scurrying storm. Through sunlit daysOn this same slope where you now stand, my friend,I stood till dusk scything the poppied fields.“My cob-built home has crumbled. HereaboutsFew folk remember me: and though you stareTill time’s conclusion you’ll not glimpse me stridingThe broad, bare down with flock or toiling team.Yet in this landscape still my spirit lingers:Down the long bottom where the tractors rumble,On the steep hanging where wild grasses murmur,In the sparse covert where the dog-fox patters.”My comrade turned aside. From the damp swardDrifted a scent of melilot and thyme;From far across the down a barn owl shouted,Circling the silence of that summer evening:But in an instant, as I stepped towards himStriving to view his face, his contour altered.Before me, in the vaporous gloaming, stoodNothing of flesh, only a post of wood.”

“And if they're fictional, it is entirely acceptable to cheat on fictional men with other fictional men.”

“Perhaps we believe that anything is better than that which we all fear the most. Loneliness. Abandonment. But once you accept that fact that you have always been alone, and will always be, then your perspective can being to change. You can become aware of the small kindnesses, the little comforts. Be grateful for them. And with time you will understand that there is nothing to fear. And much to be grateful for.”

“If life can end in one minute - so damn quickly with no damn warning - you better do what you want to do now right this minute. Because your next minute might not happen.”

“Parents have such formidable power. They can protect you from all the pain in the world. Or inflict the hardest pain of all. And as children we accept what we get. Perhaps we believe that anything is better than that which we all fear the most. Loneliness. Abandonment. But once you accept that fact that you have always been alone, and will always be, then your perspective can being to change. You can become aware of the small kindnesses, the little comforts. Be grateful for them. And with time you will understand that there is nothing to fear. And much to be grateful for. For me, the realization took a lifetime. Don't let it take you that long, Veronika. (189)”

“But once you accept the fact that you have always been alone, and will always be, then your perspective can begin to change. You can become aware of the small kindnesses, the little comforts. Be grateful for them.”