You eat canned tuna fish and you absorb protein. Then, if you're lucky, someone give you Dover Sole and you experience nourishment. It's the same with books.

Time goes on, and your life is still there, and you have to live it. After a while you remember the good things more often than the bad. Then, gradually, the empty silent parts of you fill up with sounds of talking and laughter again, and the jagged edges of sadness are softened by memories.

Our people made that choice, the choice to go to Sameness. Before my time, before the previous time, back and back and back. We relinquished color when we relinquished sunshine and did away with difference. We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others.

What's important is the preparation for adult life, and the training you'll receive in your Assignment.

It's the choosing that's important, isn't it?

Memory is the happiness of being alone.

Making lists of reasons was sometimes a good way to figure things out.