“It's hard to give up the being together with someone.”

“Oh, sometimes it's just easier to please people," Maria said finally.”

“...you can pretend that bad things will never happen. But life's a lot easier if you realize and admit that sometimes they do.”

“It is so good to have friends who understand how there is a time for crying and a time for laughing, and that sometimes the two are very close together.”

“We're so accustomed to laughing. It's harder for us when the time comes that we can't laugh.”

“I don't know what she is now. A stranger, mostly. It's as if she has become a part of a different world, one that doesn't include me anymore....”

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”

“This is where it all begins. Everything starts here, today.”

“No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories.”

“Do you know what pain is, Cammie? Its thebodys physical response to imminent harm.It is the minds way of telling us to move ourhand off the stove or let go of the brokenglass.”

“A sad lesson that was mine to learn is that you can't lose what was never truly yours. Nor can you hold to things that simply do not wish to be held.”

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”

“If I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and t...”

“I'm an Earth ecstatic, and my creed is simple: All life is sacred, life loves life, and we are capable of improving our behavior toward one another. As basic as that is, for me it's also tonic and ...”