“There have been bleak nights along my way, many of my own making, but life is all the brighter for them now. To the human eye, without the darkness there are no stars.”

“I remembered the taste of good Italian coffee in my London flat, brewed at the expense of time and a good deal of mess, compared to the sort that came out of machines in the office at the press of a button. I remembered walking to art school, through the windy winter, over hills and heaths: how much gladder I was to reach the rich warmth and to toast my hands on a radiator, than if I had gone by car. I remembered the nickels my father gave me as a child for being good: how much more I valued them than I would a dollar bill given all at once for no reason. Of course God as the ultimate parent could give happiness for the asking, just as my father could have given a handful of dollar bills, but at the age of five would I have known its value, or would it have looked to me just like a wad of grubby green paper?”

“Meditation is like hearing a voice on the telephone: there might be slight delays if the line is not perfect, but it is otherwise direct and requires no effort other than listening”

“And how I watched my little sister become a human torch. Closing my eyes doesn't help. Fire burns brighter in the darkness.”

“A falling star fell from your heart and landed in my eyes.I screamed aloud, as it tore through them, and now it's left me blind.The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out.You left me in the dark.No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight.In the shadow of your heart.And in the dark, I can hear your heartbeat.I tried to find the sound.But then it stopped, and I was in the darkness,So darkness I became.I took the stars from my eyes, and then I made a map.And knew that somehow I could find my way back.Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too.So I stayed in the darkness with you.”

“Closing my eyes doesn't help. Fire burns brighter in the darkness.”

“Even if things were the same, people's perception of them might have been very different back then. The darkness of night was probably deeper then, so the moon must have been that much bigger and brighter.”