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.

Why do I want to run from happiness?

Did she ever feel nostalgia for any of her girlhood dreams? But life was made up of a succession of dreams, some few to be realized, most to be set aside as time went on, one or two to persist for a lifetime. It was knowing when to abandon a dream, perhaps, that mattered and distinguished the successful people in life from the sad, embittered persons who never moved on from the first of life's great disappointments. Or from the airy dreamers who never really lived life at all.

I would be consumed by you,' she said, and blinked her eyes furiously when she felt them fill with tears. 'You would sap all the energy and all the joy from me. You would put out all the fire of my vitality.' 'Give me a chance to fan the flames of that fire,' he said, 'and to nurture your joy.

Even friends need private spaces, if only within the depths of their own souls, where no one else is allowed to intrude.

But parents, she supposed, were not the pinnacle of perfection their children thought or expected them to be. They were humans who usually did the best they could but often made the wrong choices.