“Staring at the stars was like staring backward in time, since some stars are so far away that their light takes millions of years just to reach us. That we see stars not as they look now, but as they were when dinosaurs roamed the earth. The whole concept just struck me as…amazing somehow.”
“The problem, simply put, is that we cannot choose everything simultaneously. So we live in danger of becoming paralyzed by indecision, terrified that every choice might be the wrong choice.”
“This I choose to do. If there is a price, this I choose to pay. If it is my death, then I choose to die. Where this takes me, there I choose to go. I choose. This I choose to do.”
“When you choose one way out of many, all the ways you don t take are snuffed out like candles, as if they d never existed.”
“Choices may be unbelievably hard but they re never impossible. To say you have no choice is to release yourself from responsibility and that s not how a person with integrity acts.”
“What happens if your choice is misguided? I ask, softly. Miss Moore takes a pear from the bowl and offers us the grapes to devour. You must try to correct it. But what if it’s too late? What if you can’t? There s a sad sympathy in Miss Moore s catlike eyes as she regards my painting again. She paints the thinnest sliver of shadow along the bottom of the apple, bringing it fully to life. Then you must find a way to live with it.”
“What is an anarchist? One who, choosing, accepts the responsibility of choice.”
“In the past, humans hesitated when they took lives, even non-human lives. But society had changed, and they no longer felt that way. As humans grew stronger, I think that we became quite arrogant, losing the sorrow of we have no other choice. I think that in the essence of human civilization, we have the desire to become rich without limit, by taking the lives of other creatures.”
“Happiness, like unhappiness, is a proactive choice.”
“Choice or no, my heart is his.”
“The spirit of a man is constructed out of his choices.”
“There seemed to be three choices: to give up trying to love anyone, to stop being selfish, or to learn to love a person while continuing to be selfish.”
“There s small choice in rotten apples.”
“Do what you think is right. Don t let people make the decision of right or wrong for you.”
“I was trying so hard to find the single pivotal moment that set my life on its path. The moment that answered the question, How did I get here? But it s never just one moment. It s a series of them. And your life can branch out from each one in a thousand different ways. Maybe there s a version of your life for all the choices you make and all the choices you don t.”
“Choose well. Your choice is brief, and yet endless.”
“There is a time in every life when paths are chosen, character is forged. I could have chosen a different path. But I didn’t. I failed myself.”