Sometimes we want what we want even if we know it’s going to kill us.

Still when I lost her, I lost sight of any landmark that might have led me someplace happier, to some more populated or congenial life.

Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming.

And the flavor of Pippa's kiss--bittersweet and strange--stayed with me all the way back uptown, swaying and sleepy as I sailed home on the bus, melting with sorrow and loveliness, a starry ache that lifted me up above the windswept city like a kite: my head in the rainclouds, my heart in the sky.

Sometimes we want what we want even if we know it’s going to kill us.

A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don’t get to choose our own hearts. We can’t make ourselves want what’s good for us or what’s good for other people. We don’t get to choose the people we are.

I think innocence is something that adults project upon children that's not really there.