“All life isn't hearts and flowers. But life is just as much pain and mess as it is joy and order, too. I guess when you make yourself realize that you.. .start growing up - Boy's Life”

“Joy, I realized, isn't so much a circumstance you find yourself in but a choice you make”

“Be careful with too much joy, it can make you numb in life.”

“There is a very dark and painful side to life, but that is natural. People in our culture think they should never be unhappy. They think that being unhappy is unnatural. They try to make it go away. They take pills or they go to therapy to "fix" themselves. They blame themselves or others for their suffering. We need to understand that sadness is as much a part of life as joy. It would be easy just to get bitter and cold while focusing on the dark side, but there is also an amazing, wonderful side of life. If you look for it, there is true magic all around us. Maybe that sounds trite to the hardened, self-protective modern ego, but there is magiv in this miraculous life. If you open yourself up, you do make yourself vulnerable to pain but the deeper the pain you experience, the deeper joy you have.”

“And when you mess with one part of a person's life, you're not messing with just that part. When you mess with one part of a person's life, you're messing with their entire life.”

“The most painful thing in life is losing yourself in the process of valuing someone too much and forgetting that you are special too”