Change and renewal are themes in life, arent they? We keep growing throughout life.

A struggle, to the person experiencing it, is a struggle.

She thought of how much people changed you. It was the opposite of what you always heard, that no one could change a person. It wasn't true. It was only through other people that one ever did change.

I learned that if you love a boy you are no longer free. The boy may become more important than your own self and if it is so, you will find trouble there. The first time you are hurt in your heart, you do not forget the lesson. It stays forever.

After she was gone there would be no one who knew the whole of her life. She did not even know the whole of it! Perhaps she should have written some of it down...but really what would have been the point in that? Everything passed, she would too. This perspective offered her an unexpected clarity she nearly enjoyed, but even with this new clarity the world offered no more explanation for itself than it ever had.

Off the packed trail we experience the miracle of corn snow, skiing atop the crust, like skiing on an eggshell that has been sprinkled with sugar.

...[She] felt as if she were both a stranger to herself and more herself than she'd ever been.