I hadn't realized how much I'd been needing to meet someone I might be able to say everything to.

I thought of the priest who'd told me that many religions hold that it is easier to be closely connected to people we love after death than before.

We are assumed to be rather hopeless - swallowed up by incorrect notions, divorced from the original genius with which we are born, lost within days of living this distracting life.

This is one rule about mixing boys and girls: that a date always comes first.

Oh just wait. It takes a lot of time, that's all...You'll have come to a certain kind of appreciation that moves beyond all the definitions of love you've ever had. A certain richness happens only later in life. I guess its' a kind of mellowing. p 80 talking about marriage and husbands

Make time for prayer and reflection; try to understand your value as a man on earth but see, too, your proper place in the scheme of things. It may sound funny to say this, but I have come to see that we are all far more important and less important than we think.

You are born into your family and your family is born into you. No returns. No exchanges.