“Harada: Failure is essential, Amanda. It’s the motivator. Even as an infant. You fall and fall again until eventually you can put one foot in front of the other and walk.Amanda: I don’t like the not knowing. Not knowing what’s wrong. Not knowing what I’m doing. Not knowing what’s happening next.Harada: You’re human. Of course you don’t like it. The trick is learning to savor the unknown. To embrace mystery. Trust me… too much knowlegde can become… will become a bigger burden than ignorance and failure will ever be.”

“Don’t waste the mornings of your life on idleness and laziness, by every means possible wrestle with your passions, your ideas and your dreams. Give it a shot!”

“Consistency will never fail you. Persevere!”

“You thought it would break you in two, but it made you twice as strong.”

“To succeed, you must never stop trying.”

“Don’t give up too soon. If you persevere you will succeed.”

“What you think of yourself in your mind is nobody’s business. Make it count.”

“That’s the thing I’ve learned about mountains: the joy you feel at scaling them is in direct proportion to how high and impassable the peak appears to be once you’re on the other side of it.”

“Money and beauty are defenses against the sorrows of this world but neither can undo the past. Only time will conquer time. The way forward is the only way back to innocence and to peace.”

“The writer’s curse is that even in solitude, no matter its duration, he never grows lonely or bored.”