By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Respect your time on this Earth, understand that God has always pardoned you, and learn to pardon too.”

I closed my eyes and let the music flow through me, cleansing my soul of all fear and sin and reminding me that I am always better than I think and stronger than I believe.

my unwillingness to see what was wonderful because tomorrow it might disappear and then I would suffer

This was the first lesson I had learned about love. The day drags along, you make thousands of plans, you imagine every possible conversation, you promise to change your behavior in certain ways—and you feel more and more anxious until your loved one arrives. But by then, you don’t know what to say.

But how to explain suffering because of a man? It's not explainable. With that kind of suffering, a person feels as if they're in hell, because there is no nobility, no greatness—only misery

Break the glass, please—and free us from all these damned rules, from needing to find an explanation for every thing, from doing only what others approve of

This was the first lesson I had learned about love. The day drags along, you make thousands of plans, you imagine every possible conversation, you promise to change your behavior in certain ways—and you feel more and more anxious until your loved one arrives. But by then, you don't know what to say. The hours of waiting have been transformed into tension, the tension has become fear, and the fear makes you embarrassed about showing affection

He must have bad some good reason, I thought.

“Men always have their reasons,” said the Other. “But the fact is that they always wind up leaving.”

how easily love could set fire to the heart

And happiness is something that multiplies when it is divided