“Childrentheir untroubled, idyllic vision of the future is almost always shattered. Sooner or later they learn what all youth mustthat life is the cruel fate that awaits them while they make plans f...”

“Strange, is it not, how even those of us who scoff at divine intervention will fall to our knees and clasp our hands the moment we realize our futures are defined by uncertainty and hazard. A thoug...”

“They say in moments of great fear or desperation, a man will always make a choiceeither to flee or face his enemy, but choice requires thought, and in the moment when you know for certain that deat...”

“Since my arrival in Rome, I have had many opportunities to wonder if compassions opposite is cruelty, or to reflect whether or not indifference would serve as a better black to its white.”

“We would soon be on our way to war, where mercy is unwise and kindness has no place.”

“Pride costs nothing, yet it is especially precious when it can be purchased at someone elses expense.”

“I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to...”

“[C]oncepts of dying in to a heaven or hell seem a good deal more political than spiritual. (124)”

“I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do. ...”

“Each stage of your lifeis like petals of a flower... unfolding and opening until it comes to full bloom...You will blossom and then you die...But know that this is not your ending.”

“What made the difference between choosing to die and deciding to live?Was it the weight of sadness that buckled them over and dragged them away from all sane, rational thoughts with an anchor of ho...”

“When you die you will not bring any possessions, but you will be accompanied by the song up into heaven”

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that youve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you sa...”

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there i...”