“People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within.”

“Things stay with you, they say, and the past grows into a living organism that you can never really shake off. Everything you've ever done, the good and the bad, is supposed to always be on your trail, breathing down your neck. Time acts on it, people say, or so they hope, and eventually some of it even gets forgotten, buried deep within.”

“Just like when two people are meant to be together for a reason, others are meant to be apart for another.”

“She did not want conversation or company, just the presence of other people; she hoped the background drone of their lives would fill the empty spaces in her mind.”

“You are like a shell,” he said. “A seashell. Hollow but beautiful.”“Hollow.” She nodded. For the rest of the day, they sat not far from each other, gazing out the window at the light shifting almost imperceptibly. They sat about and let themselves be objects on which dust might settle, air might past, light could play.“I am just an emptiness,” she said.“No,” he told her. “You are a resting place.”

“It is only by introducing the young to great literature, drama and music, and to the excitement of great science that we open to them the possibilities that lie within the human spirit -- enable them to see visions and dream dreams.”

“Okay, so maybe it was unexpected freedom of being able to get up-close and personal with him without having every inch of me quivering in pain that was doing the talking, but still. I couldn't remember ever experiencing freedom like this before: the warm sun, the caressing wind, his body warm and solid beneath my arms, a perfect blue sky above us. Clichéd? Maybe, but guess what? Also about as close to perfection as anyone can hope to get. Happiness can be so absurdly simple sometimes.”