Love does not last forever, then?" "He asked me the same thing this morning," she said. "No, it does not - not love that has been betrayed. One realizes that one has loved a mirage, someone who never really existed. Not that love dies immediately or soon, even then. But it does die and cannot be revived.

It was so much more comfortable to be able to divide people into heroes and villains and expect them to play their allotted part.

Everyone was a rose but even more complex than a mere flower. Everyone was made up of infinitely layered petals. And everyone had something indescribably precious at the heart of their being. No one was shallow. Not really.

The bad part is life continues. The good part is that the pain goes away.

Perhaps she was just looking for love in the wrong places. In all the safe places. What if love was not safe at all?

But only a person in the depths of despair neglected to look beyond winter to the spring that inevitably followed, bringing back color and life and hope.

He gazed up at the blue sky and knew that heaven—at least in this life—was neither a time nor a place to be grasped and made into a possession. It came in fleeting moments and then went away again to leave one nostalgic and yearning and on the verge of tears. Very much on the verge of tears. And very frightened.