“Love was the ultimate act of courage, he understood now. Because you had to go into it knowing it could be snatched away by forces beyond your control. and if that happened, you'd be a shell of a person, a shadow of yourself, and nothing would be any good again.”

“Anyone would know you'd never smoked, and probably never would, because the moment you put a cigarette to your lips and a flame to its tip, a host of heavenly angels would snatch it away and throw it into hell.”

“Now he understood. After a while, pain simply stopped. It was as though your mind was able to create a firewall beyond which it would not let you venture. You had to have a break from your anguish, or you'd go crazy. It was the psychological equivalent to fainting when physical pain became overbearing.”

“Call to mind a person you've lost that you will miss to the end of your days,and then imagine happening upon that person out in public. . . . You wouldn't question your sanity, because you couldn't bear to think this wasn't real. And you certainly wouldn't demand explanations, or alert anybody nearby, or reach out to touch this person, not even if you'd been feeling that one touch was worth giving everything up for. You would hold your breath. You would keep as still as possible. You would will your loved one not to go away again.”

“Nothing that had happened in the past could be taken away. This was an amazing gift. The past was done and over and settled; you couldn't get it back, but still, whatever good you had gotten from it, spiritually, emotionally, would be yours for your lifetime.”

“Sometimes it is good to have things happen to you outside of your control. There are parts of yourself you would never discover otherwise.”