“You’re trying to help them… that’s a good thing. But you can’t always count on seeing their gratitude,” he said wanting to comfort her before he added a grain of salt. “You know what Tolstoy said… if you are unhappy with your life, you can change it in two ways… either improve the conditions you live in or improve your inner spiritual state. The first isn’t always possible but the second is… In the end, Alex, people need to go directly to the source of Grace for themselves.”

“We can’t all be Byronic adventurers like you Jude. Have you been wrestling with any brigands in the mountains there?” “No, but you’ve got to watch the drivers! Funny you should mention the poetic lord. He used to take his holidays down here, you know?” “What… picking up last-minute bargains with ‘EasyFrigate’?”

“He sat down with a dour face. “Ah, Shqipëria!” he said dropping his head. “Albania will never become Albania with Albanians in it!” He glanced at Jude. “Don’t ask.”

“Buy it for anyone you know who cries in the shower, who drinks in the morning, whose life only has meaning when they’re asleep and dreaming that they’re somebody else. They will find comfort here. And if they don’t, it’s not your fault. They’ve always been this way. Some people are just all banged up. Good for you for trying to help. You’re a great person. Give yourself a hand.”

“Users are a double-edged sword. They can help you improve your language, but they can also deter you from improving. So choose your users carefully, and be slow to grow their number. Having users is like optimization: the wise course is to delay it.”

“To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them - while they last. All those things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease.”

“But if these unavoidable separations cause you a measure of pain, they also increase your longing for her, and perhaps that isn’t a bad thing, you decide, for you spend your days in the thrall of breathless anticipation, agitated and alert, counting the hours until you can see her and hold her again. Intense. That is the word you use to describe yourself now. You are intense. Your feelings are intense. Your life has become increasingly intense.”