He understood that in walking to atone for the mistakes he had made, it was also his journey to accept the strangeness of others.

...People would make the decisions they wished to make and some of them would hurt both themselves and those who loved them, and some would pass unnoticed, while others would bring joy.

The world was made up of people putting one foot in front of the other; and a life might appear ordinary simply because the person living it had been doing so for a long time.

He understood that in walking to atone for the mistakes he had made, it was his journey to accept the strangeness of others. As a passerby, he was in a place where everything, not only the land, was open. People would feel free to talk, and he was free to listen. To carry a little of them as he went.

If we don't go mad once in a while, there's no hope.

And it can take a lifetime, a life of many years, to accept the incongruity of things: that a small moment can sit side by side with a big one, and become part of the same.

After the two drinks, she felt warm inside, and slightly indistinct at the edges.