Ali

“… and so he tried to accept the ache in his heart as what Dr. Larch would call the common symptoms of normal life.”
― John Irving, The Cider House Rules

“When Jack Burns needed to hold his mother's hand, his fingers could see in the dark.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“...you have to use your failures as stepping stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair. In the end it’s all a question of balance.”
― Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance

“Long after midnight the towers and spires of Princeton were visible, with here and there a late-burning light – and suddenly out of the clear darkness the sound of bells. As an endless dream it went on; the spirit of the past brooding over a new generation, the chosen youth from the muddled, unchastened world, still fed romantically on the mistakes and half-forgotten dreams of dead statesmen and poets. Here was a new generation, shouting the old cries, learning the old creeds, through a reverie of long days and nights, destined finally to go out into the dirty grey turmoil to follow love and pride; a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all God’s dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken…”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise