Noorilhuda

“He wrote to his father every day. His platoon called his dad a girlfriend.”

“He tried to disguise how tired and ill he was, how depressing the thought of death was to him and how he spent his days and nights thinking up schemes of living beyond what the prognosis said. His hope, if not his heart, would find a way.”

“I ask you, what would you do if you could erase one bad memory and retain all that was beautiful in your life? Would you not move heaven and earth - and get loads of therapy - to have that?”

“I cannot imagine a sentence more severe than a person limited not by his or her own abilities but by the opinions and expectations of others. And having been made to organize in such a way, comes the remuneration, but no penance or escape.”

“He had accessorized his life with everything but paternal instinct.”

“What I've always taken away from his words is the sense that we all have something that confines us, that seeks to define us, label us, belittling us in the process, shortchanging our potential. Can it be that that is our sanctuary, our refuge, our way to liberty?”

“Even in death, her mother was winning.”

“One is only as good as one is useful.”

“How do you circumvent a mind bent upon lying to get away from the truth?”

“My disadvantages will tire him as they would any reasonable man of small expectations." - Jane Adams”

“If you can get to be you, why can't I get to be me?”

“You strive all through your life, to get somewhere, to be something, Some One, to matter, to have this, to have that, fill up your life with possessions, bonds, connections and in the end, the greed is still there, one does not want to let go, not unless the great gods come down and say enough is enough, no more......till then all you want is one more day." - Frank Adams”

“We, men, who work hard to get somewhere in life, to make something of ourselves in life, to mean something to someone, to have what our ancestors never had.....We, men, who toil for a name, respect, livelihood, who are pitied, mocked all for the love of a woman......We men who need to have a coherent existence, and oneness of spirit with a single soul; We, sir, do not deserve such an audience as Ms. Adams. " - Pritchard's letter”

“There was no need to analyze the feelings that the people caught in the commission of the amorous act, held for each other, for it was literally written in their hands.”

“He also knew the language of The Klingons, but the army had no use for it.”

“She had to save herself from every last one of them. All of them, the people at the orphanage, the foster care system, the middle school, they were all outsiders and strangers and a possible threat.....The counselor couldn't prove otherwise.”

“Hope is the damnedest of all feckless emotions.”

“The list of lifesavers left him numb, clueless - the action, indifferent.”

“Be faithful to the unknown, plan for it by expecting it rather than waiting for it to knock you down. I believe your husband will take care of you, for he is a hardworking sensible man, but Jane, I had no one to look out for me when I was growing up, or when I had you all to myself, it did not make me rudderless, cynical or pacifist, but it did make me feel extremely alone. It blinded me, I did not know what to make of it. No person in life can fill up that feeling, no matter how many workers we have or friends to call on, or women fluttering about, you are in this alone, you have to be all you can be in this life, and no one can make it happen for you, it is necessary to be lonely every once in a while, it is even good, but there is a difference in being alone and being helpless. If you let yourself be helpless, if you find yourself in such a predicament where you feel there is no way out, then you will be crushed whether you are a flower or a mountain. And you must not allow yourself to be crushed." - Mr. Adams to daughter Jane”

“Aurora, you're a child, live like one, don't act like one. Enjoy the innocence, dump the immaturity.”