In a way, “failure” is just another word for “the journey,” for not being there yet but on the way. It’s the road we walk on to get wherever it is we’re trying to go.

I played the clarinet, and my sister played the violin... If wed had the discipline and the passion, maybe we could have been good.

He felt it too, the air between us, the invisible lines that something or someone had drawn to connect us. That's the way I remember it.

I understand that you can never have the whole picture; inevitably, there’s stuff you don’t know, can’t know. But when it comes to Cameron I always want more than I have, would like to be able to take hold of at least one or two more pieces, if only because I’m convinced there are parts of myself inside them.

The world was full of beauty. She wanted to grab hold of it and take it down into her bones. Yet always it seemed beyond her grasp. Sometimes only by a little, like now. The thinnest membrane. Usually, though, by miles. She couldn’t expect to be that kind of happy all the time. She knew that. But sometimes you could. Sometimes you should be allowed a tiny bit of joy that should stay with you for more than five minutes. That wasn’t too much to ask. To have a moment like this, and be able to hold on to it. To cross that membrane, and feel alive.

the past only had whatever power you gave it; life was what you made it and if you wanted something different from what you had, it was up to you to make it happen.

In a way, “failure” is just another word for “the journey,” for not being there yet but on the way. It’s the road we walk on to get wherever it is we’re trying to go.