Human empathy, while not found on any chart of human anatomy, is the reason we instinctively hurt for our children... it is the reason that one human being's intensely personal tests and triumphs can be harnessed to the good of countless others.

...Some people hurt so much they can't take what they need, even when someone wants to give it to them. (106)

People react predictably, especially when they don't have time to think.

Maybe the trying is the thing. Maybe it doesn't get better than that. Maybe you never quite get there. And maybe that's okay.

Plenty of people who survive tragedies end up ambivalent about danger--frightened by it, yet strangely drawn to it.

Relationships are never chance events.

...the horrific fact that our lives and those of the people we love are impermanent and exquisitely fragile, that any of us can cease to exist without warning, that loving anyone, anywhere, at any time, leaves you infinitely vulnerable at every single moment. (20)