“Maybe if I could bear my life as it is for one day, for one hour, for one minute, I could forget my wish to be something else.”

“Ybon was the one who suggested calling the wait something else. Yeah, like what? Maybe, she said, you could call it life.”

“Everything, in the end, comes down to timing. One second, one minute, one hour could make all the difference.”

“I could make him mine. But I don't want him. I want someone else. It feels strange to have spent so much time wishing for something, for someone, and then one day, suddenly, to just stop.”

“I have seen the truth, Dostoevski said. It is not as though I had invented it with my mind. I have seen it, seen it, and the living image of it has filled my soul forever.... In one day, one hour, everything could be arranged at once! The chief thing is to love.”

“I wish I could [keep a journal]. I have a lot of journals with one page half written in. I sometimes will write myself a quick email on my Blackberry when I think of something.”

“You could be my unintended choice
To live my life extended.
You could be the one I'll always love.
You could be the one who listens
To my deepest inquisitions.
You could be the one I'll always love.”

“Not one word, not one gesture of yours shall I, could I, ever forget…”

“I apologize for my terrible interview skills. I wasn't prepared to expose stories about something so special and wonderfully private that is happening in my life. I guess a part of me wishes that I'd never have to and that maybe I could protect this special time. I was dreaming.”

“I never forgot that schooling had irretrievably changed my family’s life. That knowledge, however, did not weaken ambition. Instead, it strengthened resolve. Those times I remembered the loss of my past with regret, I quickly reminded myself of all the things my teachers could give me. (They could make me an educated man.) I tightened my grip on pencil and books. I evaded nostalgia. Tried hard to forget. But one does not forget by trying to forget. One only remembers. I remembered too well that education had changed my family’s life. I would not have become a scholarship boy had I not so often remembered.”