If you fall, you fall," Elodin shrugged. "Sometimes falling teaches us things too." In dreams you often fall before you wake.

Why are you smiling?' 'I'm relieved,' I said honestly. 'I was worried I'd given myself cadmium poisoning, or I had some mysterious disease. This is just someone trying to kill me.

It wasn't even a good note. 'If you are reading this I am probably dead.' What sort of a note is that?

Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain.

Sleep marks passing time, giving us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded they will often fall unconscious. Similarly, someone who hears traumatic news will often swoon or faint. This is the mind's way of protecting itself from pain.

A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself than a hundred years of quiet introspection

After a certain point is reached the numbers cease to matter, and all that remains is the faceless mass of a crowd.