“Me, I've seen 45 years, and I've only figured out one thing. That's this: if a person would just make the effort, there's something to be learned from everything. From even the most ordinary, commo...”

“I didnt have the vaguest idea of what to do I couldnt keep staring at the wall forever, I told myself. But even that admonition didnt work. A faculty advisor reviewing a graduation thesis would ha...”

“For me, it was a lonely season. Whenever I got home and took off my clothes, I felt as if any second my bones would burst through my skin. Like some unknown force inside me had taken a wrong turn s...”

“We walked side by side to the station. The sweater kept me comfortable in the night air.Okay, Ill keep plugging away, she said.Wasnt much help, was I?No, actually, it took a load off me just to be ...”

“I could go on like this forever, but would I ever find a place that was meant for me? Like, for example, where? After lengthy considerations, the only place I could think of was the cockpit of a tw...”

“She gave me this look she might have been watching from a lifeboat as the ship went down. Or maybe it was the other way around.”

“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 ...”

“We shall not cease from explorationAnd the end of all our exploringWill be to arrive where we startedAnd know the place for the first time.”

“Advice," Doa Vorchenza chuckled. "Advice. The years play a sort of alchemical trick, transmuting one's mutterings to a state of respectability. Give advice at forty and you're a nag. Give it at sev...”

“Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.”