He often felt that too many people lived their lives acting and pretending,wearing masks and losing themselves in the process.

Poets knew that isolation in nature, far from people and things man-made, was good for the soul, and he'd always identified with poets.

She was sleeping in a quiet bedroom beside her brother, separated only by glass and sand from the young man she loved, a young man who loved her back

I realize the odds, and science, are against me. But science is not the total answer; this I know, this I have learned in my lifetime. And that leaves me with the belief that miracles, no matter how inexplicable or unbelievable, are real and can occur without regard to the natural order of things.

The past was gone and the future had yet to unfold, and he knew he should focus his life on the present. Yet his day-to-day existence suddenly struck him as endless and unbearable.

A joy as intense as pain

Finally getting control of myself, I kissed her again, then brought my hand to her face, gently running my fingers over her cheek. I marveled at the softness of her skin, the gentleness I saw in her eyes. Even now she was perfect.