“Life essentially seeks out balance.I have found that it is in the habit of trading one sorrow for one joy until one cancels out the other.”

“If friendship were a matter of bookkeeping -- so much joy in one column, so much sorrow in the other -- everything would cancel out and you would, it seems, be left with nothing. Yet there must be another factor in the equation, for somehow the joy outweighs the sorrow.”

“She is an immense presence in the world. Tragedy and strength have so perfectly coalesced in her, as if one fed off the other. When she cries, it is not out of sorrow but out of a complex mass of emotions that address the trade-offs of life, the risks and the inevitable losses. Joy and sadness are two sides of the same thing.”

“The truth is life is full of joy and full of great sorrow, but you can't have one without the other.”

“They say that life is about balance. That it trades one sorrow for one joy and so forth until it finds some kind of harmony. Well, I want none of it. I've never been as dead as I was when I was balanced. I don't want life to be contained. I want it unbound, inspired. Alive.”

“By the external appearance of your knowledge, you have attained (high) ranks and reverence with the people! So seek with Allah higher ranks and closeness by virtue of your hidden good deeds. And know that these two ranks, one cancels out the other.”