To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

by Christopher Paolini

“Everyone messes up. How you deal with it is what determines who you are.”

“Blaming yourself is perfectly normal, but it doesn’t do you any good. Until you stop, unless you can stop, you’ll never be able to fully recover.”

It reminded her of something her grandfather—on her father’s side—had been prone to saying, which was that “… the meaning of life, Kira, is moving things from point a to point b. That’s it. That’s all we really do.” “But what about when we talk?” she had said, not entirely understanding. “That’s just moving an idea from in here,” and he tapped her on the forehead, “out into the real world.”

The happiness of two beings might be a small thing when compared with the immensity of the universe, but what, ultimately, was more important? Suffering was inescapable, but to care for another and to be cared for in turn—that was the closest any person might come to heaven.