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1 " Life isn't perfect. It's not supposed to be. We all make mistakes. You bash your head against the wall and you get hurt, but you walk away and make the best of it. And that's what makes it life, Brenna, not perfection. You'll never find happiness if you only expect to find a perfect life. Happiness is something we reach for while we try to learn from our disappointments. "
― Karen White , Learning to Breathe
2 " Sometimes we make decisions because it seems to be the only path visible at the moment. It's only later that we see there was more than one path, but the others were blocked from our vision at the time. That's the thing with hindsight, you see. Even if you can see it clearly, there's no going back. It's at that point we need to turn around and stare ahead and make a new life. "
3 " Do you know how diamonds are made?" She gazed steadily at him, the light turning her green eyes transparent.He didn't wait for her to answer. "They're made of a single element - carbon. But, over millions of years, the carbon had to undergo incredible pressure-something like a minimum of four hundred pounds per square inch-and cook to at least seven hundred degrees. The amazing thing is that if there's not enough pressure or heat, instead of a diamond, plain old graphite is made. Imagine that-instead of the world's most indestructible and beautiful thing, you get just graphite. Something to make pencils with. Sure, pencils are nice and useful. But they aren't diamonds. "
4 " To give up too easily leads to regret, yet trying and then failing can lead us to second chances if we do not accept it as a failure, but a chance to learn. "
5 " I can not regret what I have learned. Regardless of what you decide and what becomes of us, it will not change this belief, and whatever children I may have, I will try to teach them this: that life is meant to be more than existence. Fight for and hold on to your passion, whatever it is, but surrender gracefully when the passion is well spent. For it is through loss that we learn, and grief that we grow stronger, and living that we learn how to love. Everything is a choice, and by avoiding choices, one not only ensures that a wrong decision won't be made, but also steals a soul's chance to live, to learn, and to love. "