❝ I’m sure you have heard it said that appearance does not matter so much, and that it is what’s on the inside that counts. This is, of course, utter nonsense, because if it were true then people who were good on this inside would would never have to comb their hair or take a bath, and the whole world would smell even worse than it already does.

❝ At the bottom of her heart, however, she was waiting for something to happen. Like shipwrecked sailors, she turned despairing eyes upon the solitude of her life, seeking afar off some white sail in the mists of the horizon. She did not know what this chance would be, what wind would bring it her, towards what shore it would drive her, if it would be a shallop or a three-decker, laden with anguish or full of bliss to the portholes. But each morning, as she awoke, she hoped it would come that day; she listened to every sound, sprang up with a start, wondered that it did not come; then at sunset, always more saddened, she longed for the morrow.

❝ Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

❝ There is no time for love that isn’t miraculous. Get up and leave. Move. Go. Don’t hold on because you think you’ll never find someone else. If you’re even a little bit unsure, leave. Your uncertainty should tell you that at the very least, you need to explore other avenues. And if those roads lead you back, great. If they don’t, great. Wanting to leave is enough reason to go. And believe me, one way or another, you will eventually wind up where you’re supposed to.

❝ What happens in a certain place can stain your feelings for that location, just as ink can stain a white sheet.

❝ Why am I so anxious? And then it hits me. I’m not anxious, I’m lonely. And I’m lonely in some horribly deep way and for a flash of an instant, I can see just how lonely, and how deep this feeling runs. And it scares the shit out of me to be so lonely because it seems catastrophic - seeing the car just as it hits you.