“If you're going to live, you might as well do painful, brave, and beautiful things.”

“The love of a single heart can make a world of difference.”

“Don't think you can frighten me by telling me that I am alone. France is alone. God is alone. And the loneliness of God is His strength.”

“You know,” Cole said. “My mom once told me a boy would know he’d become a man when he stopped putting himself first. She said a girl would come along and I wouldn’t be able to get her out of my mind. She said this girl would frustrate me, confuse me, and challenge me, but she would also make me do whatever was necessary to be a better man–the man she needed. With you, I want to be better. I want to be what you need. Tell me what you need.”

“[She] lost her patience, a thing she was all too prone to misplacing.”

“Before, you are wise; after, you are wise. In between you are otherwise”

“I sense the world might be more dreamlike, metaphorical, and poetic than we currently believe--but just as irrational as sympathetic magic when looked at in a typically scientific way. I wouldn't be surprised if poetry--poetry in the broadest sense, in the sense of a world filled with metaphor, rhyme, and recurring patterns, shapes, and designs--is how the world works. The world isn't logical, it's a song.”

“In great literature, I become a thousand different men but still remain myself.”