But if one had everything one could ever need or want, what was left to dream of?

Tears never were worth the effort of crying them.

Nothing is permanently perfect. But there are perfect moments and the will to choose what will bring about more perfect moments.

Suddenly, and for the first time, he was at the center of his own life, living it and loving it.

Life, she realized, so often became a determined, relentless avoidance of pain-of one's own, of other people's. But sometimes pain had to be acknowledged and even touched so that one could move into it and through it and past it. Or else be destroyed by it.

Sometimes even the imagination lets one down.

And she was terribly aware that she was alive. Not just living and breathing, but ...alive.