I lost my family,” he says softly. The tone of his voice justifies my earlier regret. “If you have nothing to love, you have nothing to lose. Even your own life becomes meaningless.

I could not do this, I realized, if I were immortal. This degree of love of life and of one another is granted, I saw for once and for ever, not to immortals, but to those who live briefly and always under the shadow of death and loss.

Sometimes the heart of a weary soul needs a simple moment of love and light shined upon it, or reflected back to it. That momentary connection might be the one thing that inspires a person to take one more step and move in a positive new direction.

Okay, how's this? I’ve been to Heaven and Hell. I’ve seen the whole world, but the only thing that makes me want to live is this: being inside you. I love you so much. You’re all I see.

Fall in love by all means. Live , get hurt, pick yourself up and get going. Life is meant to be sweet, sour, bitter, cold, hot and warm because you are made to experience everything and LEARN from them.

The forest is only waiting for their signal to start trembling, hissing, and roaring from its depths. An enormous, love-maddened, unlighted railway station, full to bursting. Whole trees bristling with living noise makers, mutilated erections, horror.

In this sleepless night, as the darkness advances, look up at the sky and somehow remember that somewhere in this wide world, there are always people who love you, and people who need you. Because every person can't go on living alone.

Animals are the bridge between us and the beauty of all that is natural. They show us what's missing in our lives, and how to love ourselves more completely and unconditionally. They connect us back to who we are, and to the purpose of why we're here.

With the blood dripping from her lips, with her blood spattered white dress, and with her pale skin, she is just a horrifyingly lovely and a breathtakingly attractive sixteen-year-old girl living in Hell. Nothing wrong with that, right?

I don't just look at the thing itself or at the reality itself; I look around the edges for those little askew moments-kind of like what makes up our lives-those slightly awkward, lovely moments.