This Side of Paradise.

On the edge of the field stood a little pump house,

and a willow tree flourished beside it, fed by the overspill of water. The long skirts of the willow hung down nearly to the ground. 

Abra parted the switches like a curtain and went into the house of leaves made against the willow trunk by the sweeping branches. . . inside was protected, warm, and safe. The afternoon sunlight came yellow through the aging leaves.
"I guess it will be a long time before we can get married," he said.
"Not so long." Abra said.
"I wish it was now."
"It won't be so long," said Abra.

'We'll have a house together sometime," Aron said, bemused. 'We'll go in and close the door and it will be nice. But that will be a in a long time."

Abra put out her hand and touched him on the arm. "Don't you worry about long times," she said. "This is kind of a house. We can play like we live here while we're waiting. And you will be my husband and you can call me wife. It'll be like practicing."

---East of Eden

"Here is the world.

beautiful and terrible things will happen.

Don't be afraid." --Frederick Buechner

"Whatever you do, you need courage.

Whatever course you decide on, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a solider needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them."

--- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I would rather be ashes than dust.

I would rather that my spark burn out in a brilliant blaze that it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in a magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste me days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time." --Jack London

"When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like:

'If you live each day as if it was your last, you'll most certainly be right.' It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something."

---Steve Jobs

"The truth is, you can divide your heart in all sorts of interesting ways---

a little here, a little there, most banked at home, some coined out for a flutter. But love cleaves through the mind's mathematics. Love's lengthways splits the heart in two---the heart where you are, the part where you want to be."

---Jeanette Winterson

True.

"There is no safe investment.

To love at all is to be vulnerable."

---C.S. Lewis

"Waiting is painful.

Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering."

"And everyone is rushing around me

to be over there, and there, and everywhere, but why can't they just be here? Because you can't fix something on the inside by fixing something on the outside, and he was always just OK with letting things be the way they were. And when I was with him, I was OK too. OK with just letting everything exist the way it was supposed to, and he never felt the need to change me or fix me or anything. And I never felt the need to be changed."

"The right thing,

at the wrong time, is still the wrong thing."

---Joshua Wright

"Because

things change, and friends leave, and life doesn't stop for anybody."

---The Perks of Being a Wallflower

" 'Why don't people's hearts tell them

to follow their dreams?' the boy asked. 'Because that's what makes a heart suffer most, and hearts don't like to suffer.' From then on, the boy understood his heart. He asked it, please, never to stop talking to him."

"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time,

and your government when it deserves it."

---Mark Twain.

"I came into this world,

not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad."

---Henry David Thoreau

All of the lights.

"And above all, watch with glittering eyes

the whole world around you,

because the greatest secrets are

always hidden in the most unlikely places.

Those who don't believe in magic

will never find it."

--Roald Dahl.