“Sometimes its the small things in life that matter... but then again, is it the big things in life that are important?”

“Sometimes I look back and I am shocked. Everyday of my life I have prepared for success, worked for it, waited for it, and you don't notice how the days pass until nearly a lifetime is finished. Then it hits you--the thing you have been waiting for has already gone by. And it was going in the other direction. It's like I've been waiting on the wrong side of the road for a bus that was already full." p. 265”

“I don't like cleaning or dusting or cooking or doing dishes, or any of those things," I explained to her. "And I don't usually do it. I find it boring, you see.""Everyone has to do those things," she said."Rich people don't," I pointed out.Juniper laughed, as she often did at things I said in those early days, but at once became quite serious."They miss a lot of fun," she said. "But quite apart from that--keeping yourself clean, preparing the food you are going to eat, clearing it away afterward--that's what life's about, Wise Child. When people forget that, or lose touch with it, then they lose touch with other important things as well.""Men don't do those things.""Exactly. Also, as you clean the house up, it gives you time to tidy yourself up inside--you'll see.”

“I shut myself off to make life bearable. I'm like a damn machine sometimes. Unfeeling. Uncaring. Emotionless.”

“Life made its pattern around and beneath and through her.”

“But Mariana was wrong. You couldn't die. You had to go on. When you were born, you were given a trust of individuality that you were bound to preserve. It was precious. The things that happened in your life, however closely connected with other people, developed and strengthened that individuality. You became a person.”

“I wanted to scream at him, but then I just felt sad again. He obviously hadn’t cared enough about me to truly let me into his life at all. He’d kept so much from me, and I kind of hated him for that.”