“Sometimes you have an idea of a person — about who they are, about what you'd be like together. But sometimes that's all that it is: an idea. And for so long, I have been afraid that I loved the idea of Emily more than I will ever be capable of loving anyone real.” He looked at me like the act of doing so was painful and sweet. “It was never just the idea of you, Avery.”

“The Wild still lingered in him and the wolf in him merely slept.”

“When we identify where our privilege intersects with somebody else's oppression, we'll find our opportunities to make real change.”

“Nothing resembles selfishness more closely than self-respect”

“Expectations are a funny thing,” Wen said. “When you’re born with them, you resent them, fight against them. When you’ve never been given any, you feel the lack of them your whole life.”

“The more the drive toward life is thwarted, the stronger is the drive toward destruction; the more life is realized, the less is the strength of destructiveness. Destructiveness is the outcome of unlived life.”

“I think of love, and you, and my heart grows full and warm, and my breath stands still.”

“I love to walk. Walking is a spiritual journey and a reflection of living. Each of us must determine which path to take and how far to walk; we must find our own way, what is right for one may not be for another. There is no single right way to deal with late stage cancer, to live life or approach death, or to walk an old mission trail.”