“I cannot remember much, I cannot feel much. Maybe erasure is necessary. Maybe the human spirit defends itself as the body does, attacking infection, enveloping and destroying those malignancies that would otherwise consume us.”

“I cannot shut you out the way I shut the others out, so maybe I can destroy you. Must destroy you?”

“I could not imagine living away from Sevenwaters, away from all that was so much a part of me. Maybe, if you cared enough about someone, you could do it and not feel your spirit torn in two. But the forest keeps her hold on all those who are born there, and they cannot travel far without the yearning in them to return.”

“But being around so much love has managed to thaw my frozen parts into something human. I feel human. Like maybe I could be part of this world. Like maybe I don't have to be a monster. Maybe I'm not a monster. Maybe things can change.”

“maybe deathisn't darkness, after all,but so much lightwrapping itself around us--”

“You love nobody. Is that not true?""Maybe," said Siddhartha wearily. "I am like you. You cannot love either, otherwise how could you practice love as an art? Perhaps people like us cannot love. Ordinary people can - that is their secret.”