“Enclose your heart in times of need with the steel of your determination and your strength. In doing this, all things will be bearable.”

“I need the thing that happens when your brain shuts off and your heart turns on.”

“If you believe in your heart that you are right, then you must fight with all your might to do it your way. Only dead fish swim with the stream all the time.”

“For the vision to be taken seriously, the destination- or the goal- has to be attainable. It's your vision, so you need to determine the timing. With your destination in focus, you need to describe who you are, what you do, and how you are going to get there.”

“Never assume. Never make plans. Keep doing the press-ups and deep knee bends: you'll need all your strength and flexibility when your life suddenly implodes. Maybe it won't — some people do lead enchanted lives — but odds are that it will. Some time.”

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.”

“I always need your strength, Alec”

“Your greatest strength, Ray, and possibly your only strength, is in pretending that you don't understand simple things.”

“Your value is not determined by your valuables, and God says the most valuable things in life are not things!”

“I know what it's like to squander all your hours and all your tears and all your heart on something which turns out to be nothing. Don't waste your time.”