"Values are principles and ideas that bring meaning to the seemingly mundane experience of life. A meaningful life that ultimately brings happiness and pride requires you to respond to temptations as well as challenges with honor, dignity, and courage."

"Our specious present as such is very short. We do, however, experience passing events; part of the process of the passage of events is directly there in our experience, including some of the past and some of the future."

"If I can draw the slightest smile across a single face obliterated by pain, in that act I will have begun to understand the power of an ordinary human being to perform the seemingly impossible in the life of another human being. And how can that experience do anything less than drive me to try and make the world smile."

"Her endless, futile attempts to make her feelings known fell on stony ground. Slowly she retreated into the darkness where her dreams became reality and reality faded into the deep recesses of her soul...."

"We live in the hope that life will be different. Just a little more substance perhaps in the intrinsic frailty of the days. Such resignation frightens me. Between gunshots I get drunk. In secret, all knowledge becomes anxiety."

"The dwarf’s eyes widened—at least I think they widened, since they became much more visible in his hairy face—and he froze.“Would you prefer to retrieve the missive yourself, M’lady Wisp?” he asked.“I’d rather not,” I said. No way was I touching some strange dude’s vest, no matter how impressive his beard."