“Because I dont care what anyone says or how often or winningly they say it: no one will ever, ever be able to persuade me that life is some awesome, rewarding treat. Because, heres the truth: life ...”

“How much did she remember? I wondered, afire with humiliation yet unable to tear my eyes from her. It wasnt the kind of thing you could ask but still I wanted to know. Did she have nightmares too? ...”

“Putting your time in at the office; dutifully spawning your two point five; smiling politely at your retirement party; then chewing on your bedsheet and choking on your canned peaches at the nursin...”

“Whenever you see flies or insects in a still lifea wilted petal, a black spot on the applethe painter is giving you a secret message. Hes telling you that living things dont lastits all temporary. ...”

“What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that cant be trusted? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health...”

“And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesnt touch. For if disaster and oblivion ...”

“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging...”

“She didn't belong anywhere and she never really belonged to anyone. And everyone else belonged somewhere and to someone. People thought she was too wonderful. But she only wanted to belong to someo...”

“Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and se...”

“Within what is allotted to us, we can have spiritual contentment.”

“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”

“He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.”

“For the two of us, home isn't a place. It is a person. And we are finally home.”

“The vast and beautiful world is the home we share together.”

“I stood there a long while, staring at that tree. It looked so strongSo beautiful. Hurt right down the middleBut alive and well. Cee touched my shoulderLightly. Frank? Yes? Come on, brother. Let's ...”