“Each day is a miracle that intoxicates me. I want more. I greet every morning like a new pleasure. And yet I am keenly aware of all life's artifices. Getting dressed, wearing make-up, laughing, having fun-isn't all that just playing a role? Am I not more profound, carrying the burden of those twenty years when I 'wasn't alive', than all those who rushed around in vain during that time?”

“I often think of life as a deposit of time. We are each allocated so many years, just like a fixed sum in a bank. When twenty-four hours have passed I have spent one more day. I read in the People's Daily that the average life expectancy for a Chinese woman is seventy-two. I am already seventy-four years old. I spent all my deposits two years ago and am on bonus time. Every day is already a gift. What is there to complain of?”

“And to the casual observer it looks like I have moved on since I go around wearing my little happy mask all day. I smile and laugh and carry on like my heart's still in one piece, but beneath it all, I am dying.”

“My cheek stings with Demi’s anger. On my lips, the taste of her skin lingers. The two sensations mix, intoxicating me. It’s all too much. And yet, it’s all so much more real than anything I’ve experienced before. I want to drink it up, let the rush crest over me. I feel alive. Powerful.And I want more.”

“But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but i laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”

“To live every day as if it had been stolen from death, that is how I would like to live. To feel the joy of life, as Eve felt the joy of life. To separate oneself from the burden, the angst, the anguish that we all encounter every day. To say I am alive, I am wonderful, I am. I am. That is something to aspire to.”