“He cried that night for all that he had lost, but he would say it taught him a valuable lesson: that holding on to things "will only break your heart.”

“Westley closed his eyes. There was pain coming and he had to be ready for it. He had to prepare his brain, he had to get his mind controlled and safe from their efforts, so that they could not break him. He would not let them break him. He would hold together against anything and all. If only they gave him sufficient time to make ready, he knew he could defeat pain. It turned out they gave him sufficient time (it was months before the Machine was ready).But they broke him anyway.”

“He was drowned, he used to say, and lying on a cliff with gulls screaming over him. He would look over the edge of the sofa down into the sea. Or he was hearing music… But “Lovely!” he used to cry and the tears would run down his cheeks, which was to her the most dreadful thing of all, to see a man like Septimus, who had fought, who was brave, crying. And he would lie listening until suddenly he would cry that he was falling down, down into the flames!”

“He taught me to cry, to love, to forgive. He taught me that sometimes truths are complicated, woven deeper than we could ever imagine. He taught me to let go. To hold on. And that what's real... is all that will ever matter.”

“Holding on to things only breaks your heart.”

“and taught him the only thing he had to learn about love: that nobody teaches life anything.”