“all abilities are paid for with disabilities. perfect health may entail the heavy toll of bovine stupidity. insight into one area involves blind spots in another. i could not have done what i have done as a writer had i been a gifted mathematician or physicist.honesty wrung out of him by pain, he cried out with a loud voice.”

“I had been right, I was still right, I was always right. I had lived my life one way and I could just as well have lived it another. I had done this and I hadn't done that. I hadn't done this thing but I had done another. And so?”

“At some point, I had to start laughing, because I was all wrung out from crying.”

“Sean," I forced a smile, but it might have looked a little scary. "When have I ever done anything stupid?""Perfect," he muttered.”

“No," he repeated, and this time the word tolled in another voice, a king's voice... whose grief was not for what he did not have, but for what he could not give.”

“I wouldn't have been sent back to help you," Tristan continued. "I wouldn't have been made an angel if it weren't important that you live, Ivy. I want you to be mine" -Ivy could hear the pain in his voice- "but you're not.""I am!" she cried out loud."We're on different sides of a river," he said, "and it's a river that neither of us can cross. You were meant for somebody else.”