Allegra

“So we dream on. Thus we invent our lives. We give ourselves a sainted mother, we make our father a hero; and someone’s older brother and someone’s older sister – they become our heroes too. We invent what we love and what we fear. There is always a brave lost brother – and a little lost sister, too. We dream on and on: the best hotel, the perfect family, the resort life. And our dreams escape us almost as vividly as we can imagine them… That’s what happens, like it or not. And because that’s what happens, this is what we need: we need a good, smart bear… Coach Bob knew it all along: you’ve got to get obsessed and stay obsessed. You have to keep passing the open windows.”
― John Irving, The Hotel New Hampshire

“It's always been hard for me to tell the difference between denial and what used to be known as hope.”
― Michael Chabon, Wonder Boys

“I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.”
― W. H. Auden, Collected Poems

“What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us wind up in parentheses.”
― John Irving, The Cider House Rules