“What amazes me is that most days feel useless. I don't seem to accomplish anything-just a few pages, most of which don't seem very good. Yet, when I put all those wasted days together, I somehow end up with a book of which I'm very proud.”

“I decided, very early on, just to accept life unconditionally; I never expected it to do anything special for me, yet I seemed to accomplish far more than I had ever hoped. Most of the time it just happened to me without my ever seeking it.”

“All I really, really want to do is find a very, very fine chocolate store that I can walk into and then figure out how in the world one manages to pick out just a few chocolates out of all those very many chocolates! If I am one day able to walk into a fine chocolate store and know for certain which chocolates I want, when that happens, I will believe myself to be accomplished!”

“Why I love him is, I don't know, because he seems very brave and kind and sweet. All that stuff but something else, too. I don't know what something else, but he's different somehow, and what I'm trying to say is it's a good kind of difference, whatever it is.”

“Anyway, all I'm saying is that there was this time--maybe it was a day, maybe a few days, I can't remember now--when everything seemed to have come together. And so obviously it was time to go and screw it all up.”

“When ours are interrupted, his are not. His plans are proceeding exactly as scheduled, moving us always (including those minutes or hours or years which seem most useless or wasted or unendurable).”