Of course you keep telling yourself there's something to be learned from everything, and growing old shouldn't be that hard. That's the general drift.

It's not right for one friend to do all the giving and the other to do all the taking: that's not real friendship.

What makes us the most normal," said Reiko, "is knowing that we're not normal.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Say you’re running and you think, ‘Man, this hurts, I can’t take it anymore. The ‘hurt’ part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand anymore is up to the runner himself.

It's a question of attitude. If you really work at something you can do it up to a point. If you really work at being happy you can do it up to a point. But anything more than that you can't. Anything more than that is luck.

Once she was out of the car and gone, my world was suddenly hollow and meaningless.

Better to be a first-class matchbox than a second-class match.