Don__ you think it__ actually harder for you . . . to adapt, I mean? Because you__e done all that stuff?___re you asking me if I wish I'd never done it?_____ just wondering if it would have been easier for you. If you__ led a smaller life. To live like this, I mean.___ will never, ever regret the things I've done. Because most days, if you__e stuck in one of these, all you have are the places n your memory that you can go to._ He smiled. It was tight, as if it cost him. __o if you__e asking me would I rather be reminiscing about the view of the caste from the minimart, or that lovely row of shops down off the roundabout, then, no. My life was just fine, thanks.

I wonder if that's the perennial story of writers: you find the true light, you lose the true light, you find it again. And maybe again.

Don't show a friend your gift, or your bag of money if you still want to maintain your relationship, but if nay, go on, and all you'll see is hate and jealousy, and you'll fight with him in the street like a dog and all you'll feel is regret.

As he stared into the ocean, he must have tossed a lifetime of apologies into its silence. Maybe he thought the tide would wash his troubles away.

All my life, in nameless, indeterminate ways, I'd tried to complete my life with someone else--first my father, then Hugh, even Whit, and I didn't want that anymore. I wanted to belong to myself.

Taking risks is part of life, but to take risks invites the possibilty of failure and rejection, but also the possibility of true happines.