There was an unexpected freedom in finding out that one wasn't as important as one had always assumed!

I am buoyant and expansive and uncontainable--but I always was so, only I never knew it!

they say in the old tales that when a man and woman exchange looks the way we did, their spirits mingle. their gaze is a rope of gold binding each other. even if they never meet again, they carry a little of the other with them always. they can never forget, and they can never be wholly happy again

A problem becomes a problem only if you believe it to be so. And often others see you as you see yourself.

Fennel, which is the spice for Wednesdays, the day of averages, of middle-aged people. . . . Fennel . . . smelling of changes to come.

Can't you ever be serious?' I said, mortified. 'It's difficult,' he said. 'There's so little in life that's worth it.

the darkness is a cresting wave. It sweeps me up out of my body until I float among the stars, those tine bright pores on the sky's skin. If only I could pass through them, I would end up on the other side, the right side, shadowless, perfectly illuminated, beyond the worries of this mundane world