Life is a precious possession...It is what one makes of it. - Charity Duncan

But that is what life is all about, he said. "It is about dreaming and making those dreams come true with effort and determination - and love.

But there were certain moments in life that forever defined one as a person - in one's own estimation, anyway. And one's own self esteem, when all was said and done, was of far more importance than the fickle esteem of one's peers.

Families are wonderful institution," he said. "I value mine more than I can possibly say. But each of us has an individual life to live, our own path to tread, our own destiny to forge. You can imagine, if you will, how my family wished to shelter and protect me and do my living for me so that I would never again know fear or pain or abandonment. Eventually I had to step clear of them-or I might have fallen into the temptation of allowing them to do just that.

Always guarding one's real, precious self in a cocoon of tranquility within a thousand masks.Life itself had become a secret affair.

Suddenly, and for the first time, he was at the center of his own life, living it and loving it.

He had always felt that he lived on the edges of life, Constantine realized, watching everyone else living, sometimes helping them do it.

The bad part is life continues. The good part is that the pain goes away.

Black is the absence of all color. White is the presence of all colors. I suppose life must be one or the other. On the whole, though, I think I would prefer color to its absence. But then black does add depth and texture to color. Perhaps certain shades of gray are necessary to a complete palette. Even unrelieved black. Ah, a deep philosophical question. Is black necessary to life, even a happy life? Could we ever be happy if we did not at least occasionally experience misery?