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“... what he wanted was to capture with his project was the feeling of time, of having been a part of something that stretched so far back, was so impossibly large, that it was easy to forget that she, and he, and everyone else, existed in it—not apart from it, but inside of it.”

“From the very beginning of our lives we must define ourselves As boys or girls. Later, we become good students or bad, artists or business people, pretty or homely. We call ourselves the lawyers or shop clerks or musicians or singers. We turn into husbands or wives. Each new definition stacks itself on top of all of the previous ones. And suddenly, you are smothered under the weight of them.

“If passion is deeply entwined with uncertainty, then a mother’s love is the opposite: it never wavers, never depends on performance, never requires an equal amount of love in return. You have the luxury of brushing off a mother’s love, knowing your scorn or indifference will never make it go away. It is like air — you can forget it exists, and that it is essential to your life.”

“When we are young, we give ourselves completely. We allow our first friends or first lovers or first songs inside us, to become a part of our unformed being, without ever thinking of the consequences, or of their permanence within us. This is one of the beauties of youth, and one of its burdens.”

"The Buddha observed that life is suffering. That is, that life inevitably confronts us with pain and discomfort. When it does, we often react reflexively to try to remove the causes of pain and increase the sources of pleasure. Neither of these solutions are lasting, however, and so our efforts end up generating more pain in the long run. Out of this endless cycle, suffering is born."