“It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams...”

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”

“Happiness is not a goal...it's a by-product of a life well lived.”

“Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”

“Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn't have the power to say yes.”

“There is a growing wave in this country of fear, and of intolerance which springs from fear. Sometimes it is a religious intolerance, sometimes it is a racial intolerance, but all intolerance grows...”

“Love and a red rose can't be hid.”

“Can anyone remember love? It's like trying to summon up the smell of roses in a cellar. You might see a rose, but never the perfume.”

“Among my activities was membership in the Boy Scouts; I rose each year through the ranks, eventually achieving the rank of Eagle Scout and undertaking leadership roles in the organization.”

“I am the perfect version of me.”

“But if you tame me, then weshall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, Ishall be unique in all the world.”

“I don't want the world to keep turning without me on it.”

“Fine," he repeated, and I wondered why it was I kept coming back to this, again and again, a word that you said when someone asked how you were but didn't really care to know the truth.”

“All is fine with the world...”

“Your mother is going to be fine," the nurse says. I breathe more easily but the word settles into my stomach. Fine. Was she fine before?”