But there's no way to avoid regret. Don't let anybody tell you different. Regret is just life's aftertaste. No matter what you choose, you're gonna wonder if you shoulda done things different. I didn't necessarily choose wrong. I just chose. And I lived with my choice, aftertaste and all.

It's hard to come to terms with the fact that you aren't going to be loved the way you want to be loved.

Books allow you to be whoever you want to be, to escape yourself for a while.

Usually redemption implies rescue - being saved. What were you being saved from?' he inquired, his voice carefully neutral. 'Ugliness.

But maybe you see beauty in me because you are beautiful, not because I am.

True beauty, the kind that doesn't fade or wash off, takes time. It takes incredible endurance. It is the slow drip that creates the stalactite, the shaking of the Earth that creates mountains, the constant pounding of the waves that breaks up the rocks and smooths the rough edges. And from the violence, the furor, the raging of the winds, the roaring of the waters, something better emerges, something that would have otherwise never existed.

Sometimes the things we want to be rescued from can save us.