Ali

“You're my best friend," West tells Tony, stroking her hair back from her forehead. "I owe you a lot." Tony is touched by his gratitude, and too young to be suspicious of it.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride

“He was suddenly uneasy - almost terrified - at the thought of seeing them all again, their children's faces almost worn away, almost buried under change as the old hospital had been buried. Banks erected inside their heads where once magic picture-palaces had stood.”
― Stephen King

“And what if it wasn't Thomas I had been missing all this time? What if it had been the act of loving -- the moving through life while loving, the way of seeing myself while loving, the splendid shapes love makes of the world, the way it takes the mundane and twists it into something altogether worthier?”
― John Paul Brammer, ¡Hola Papi!: How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons

“There's something i'm finding out as l'm aging, that I am in love with the world. As I look out my window and see my trees, my beautiful beautiful maples that are hundreds of years old, they re beautiful, and you say 'I can see how beautiful they are'; I can take the time to see how beautiful they are. It is a blessing to grow old, it is a blessing to do the things, to read the books, to listen to the music. I don't think I'm rationalizing, I really don't. Because this is all inevitable and I have no control. ... I don't know anymore, and I don't care.... I have nothing now but praise for my life. I'm not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more. ...
What I dread is the isolation. ... There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready.”
― Maurice Sendak