“Happiness is not a life without pain, but rather a life in which the pain is traded for a worthy price.”

“It will hurt." said Petra. "But let's make the most of what we have, and not let future pain ruin present happiness.”

“Life is full of grief, to exactly the degree we allow ourselves to love other people.”

“Youre not a human being until you value something more than the life of your body. And the greater the thing you live and die for the greater you are.”

“This emotion I'm feeling now, this is love, right?""I don't know. Is it a longing? Is it a giddy stupid happiness just because you're with me?""Yes," she said."That's influenza," said Miro. "Watch ...”

“In philosophy class I think we finally decided that 'good' is an infinitely recursive term - it can't be defined except in terms of itself. Good is good because it's better than bad, though why it'...”

“I have done it," she says. At first I do not understand. But then I see the tomb, and the marks she has made on the stone. A C H I L L E S, it reads. And beside it, P A T R O C L U S."Go," she says...”

“For Achilles, the death of Patroclus pushed him into a fury, but it was not only grief that drove him. It was also a sense of shame and guilt because he had not been there to protect his friend. So...”

“Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and knowand yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better ...”

“Achilles might be a good papa to the family, but he was also a killer, and he never forgives.Poke knew that, though. Bean warned her, and she knew it, but she chose Achilles for their papa anyway. ...”

“Poke had never shared out so many raisins, because she had never had so many to share. But the little kids wouldn't understand that. They'd think, Poke gave us garbage, and Achilles gave us raisins...”

“But if you caught my informant,' said Achilles, 'why in the world would Chamrajnagaror Graff, if it was himlaunch the shuttle anyway? Was catching me doing something naughty so important theyd risk...”

“You don't have to eat the entire turd to know that it's not a crab cake.”

“Death is not a tragedy to the one who dies; to have wasted the life before that death, that is the tragedy.”

“O my son Absalom,' Bean said softly, knowing for the first time the kind of anguish that could tear such words from a mans mouth. 'my son, my son Absalom. Would God I could die for thee, O Absalom,...”