What have you done? What have you given up?' So many things, Cecily. More than you know.

Fall has always been my favorite season. The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale.

There is a dark place calling to me, but I will not go just yet. I know I can't return from it.

Suddenly the clouds seem high above us. They’re moving over us in an arch, circling the planet. They have seen abysmal oceans and charred, scorched islands. They have seen how we destroyed the world. If I could see everything, as the clouds do, would I swirl around this remaining continent, still so full of color and life and seasons, wanting to protect it? Or would I just laugh at the futility of it all, and meander onward, down the earth’s sloping atmosphere?

I always knew I was an excellent liar; I just didn't know that I had it in me to fool myself.

It's best to let her go," he says. No, no, that's wrong. It's never right to give up on someone.

It isn’t a perfect place. There are no perfect places. But nobody cares about perfection when there are sand castles to build and kites to chase, children that are being born, old hearts that are giving in.