Before We Were Strangers: A Love Story

You can’t re-create the first time you promise to love someone or the first time you feel loved by another. You cannot relive the sensation of fear, admiration, self-consciousness, passion, and desire all mixed into one because it never happens twice.

The only thing you can do is choose the person you love, be kind to others, and make your brutally short stint on earth as pleasant as possible.

The present is our own. The right-this-second, the here-and-now, this moment before the next, is ours for the taking. It’s the only free gift the universe has to offer. The past doesn’t belong to us anymore, and the future is just a fantasy, never guaranteed. But the present is ours to own.

‘Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.’

‘I used to think I was poor because I didn’t have any shoes, and then I met a man with no feet.’ ”

Aletha seemed like someone whose soul was so at peace, like life was no a longer a mystery to her.

We both cried together, surrendering to the reality that we had to accept. No one could change the past or give us back the time we had lost, and there were no words to make everything better. We just had to accept the present for what it was.

sex is perfectly selfless and selfish all at once.

‘Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.’ ”