“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”

“We knew nothing of loss. Nobody has taught us about pain. Until that moment, death had just amounted to a scary sound.”

“The part of us that has to be burned away is something like the deadwood on the bush; it has to go, to be burned in the terrible fire of reality, until there is nothing left but . . . what we are meant to be.”

“He has been taught in his head, but his heart has not been satisfied, and he goes away still hungry.”

“Was there ever really a chance for us? What is down in the middle of him, his very center? Does he even have a center, or do you just cut away the layers, away, away, away, until you are left with nothing?”

“We are not separate, and I want you to know that. We are all part of one thing, and nothing good has ever passed or ever can pass away. There is no way out, but there is a way in, and when one person feels lonely like a ghost it touches us all.”