Perhaps we are on an insula ex machina, an artificial place not in the real world at all -- a backdrop for the stories we must tell.

Life wasn't about becoming, was it? It was about being.

Most people muddled through events and only in retrospect realized their significance.

Sometimes I would like to cry. I close my eyes. Why weren't we designed so that we can close our ears as well? (Perhaps because we would never open them.) Is there some way that I could accelerate my evolution and develop earlids?

Patricia embraces me on the station platform. 'The past is what you leave behind in life, Ruby,' she says with the smile of a reincarnated lama. 'Nonsense, Patricia,' I tell her as I climb on board my train. 'The past's what you take with you.

Why is everything an 'adventure' with you?" Sylvie said irritably to Izzie." "Because life is an adventure, of course." "I would say it was more of an endurance race," Sylvie said. "Or an obstacle course.

You can step in the same river but the water will always be new.