Being human means losing everything we love best in the world," she murmured as she released me. "But would you ask to be anything else?

Here is the riddle of love: Everything it gives to you, it takes away.

You build your world around someone, and then what happens when he disappears? Where do you go-into pieces, into atoms, into the arms of another man? You go shopping, you cook dinner, you work odd hours, you make love to someone else on June nights. But you're not really there.

Some fates are guaranteed, no matter who tries to intervene.

I heard a sigh, as though the books were breathing. I felt that this was where I belonged. This was where I lived.

That's why there are ten gates to pass through before you reach the garden. If life were easy there would be one gate. There would be no gates at all.

I think we are bound to, and by, nature. We may want to deny this connection and try to believe we control the external world, but every time there's a snowstorm or drought, we know our fate is tied to the world around us