“He felt as though he were failing in practically every area of his life. Lately, happiness seemed as distant and unattainable to him as space travel. He hadn't always felt this way. There had been a long period of time during which he remembered being very happy. But things change. People change. Change was one of the inevitable laws of nature, exacting its toll on people's lives. Mistakes are made, regrets form, and all that was left were repercussions that made something as simple as rising from the bed seem almost laborious. ”

“It seemed to him that every time he made one choice in his life, he said no to another. All of those things he could not do or be were huddled inside of him; they might spring up at any moment, and he would be hobbled with regret.”

“Okay, he hadn't exactly been happy. But welcome to the club, right? He had eyes. He could see auras, those swirls of color that surrounded all living things, as unique as fingerprints. And those auras told him there were a lot of people out there who weren't quite happy or exactly miserable. And they were all getting along okay.”

“These were things she hadn't felt wile being kissed in a long, long time. Exciting things. Especially when he lowered his head to kiss her again, this time on the throat. That's when she felt that her heart might burst from happiness.”

“At school he had done things which had formerly seemed to him very horrid and made him feel disgusted with himself when he did them; but when later on he saw that such actions were done by people of good position and that they did not regard them as wrong, he was able not exactly to regard them as right, but to forget about them entirely or not be at all troubled at remembering them.”

“He had known in times of the greatest misery or danger that his dreams of home, in which all things seemed beautiful, were in essence his longing for the woman for whom he had been made. That was how, as a soldier, he had seen it, and it was how he had come through.”