So much I wish I’d done differently. Bursts of guilt—If only!—that haunt me at every turn. Suddenly understanding those old feelings in unexpected, unrelated situations. Things that will remain incomprehensible or unanswered regardless of what lies ahead of me.

I hope you all have someone who always makes you want to say, Let’s remember this day forever.” The students oohed and aahed, and then laughed at each other’s reaction. I laughed with them. “Also …” They’d thought I was done but they quieted down again. “I hope you will never hesitate to say, I’ll be right there.

When we stopped saying, I’ll be right there?

How eagerly I used to wish for someone to tell me I would someday be able to painlessly accept everything that had happened to us.

Whenever I refer to a certain time as long ago, I feel like I am walking somewhere. Maybe those things that we realize only after so much time has passed that we can describe them as long ago are what we are made of.

Look up to the sky. That’s where the stars are. They are always shining there, whether we are gazing up at them, and whether we forget, and long after we die. May each one of you become one of those shining stars.

Knowing you are alive means knowing you will soon change into a different form, and that that is the source of our hope. All beings, from human beings to the most insignificant creatures, experience a moment of radiance between birth and death. A moment that we call youth.

The more you love someone, the stronger that feeling is. But if we cannot despair over the things we’ve lost, then what does it all mean? But … I don’t want that despair to damage your souls.

Can’t wait to be older, when I will understand, even if I can’t forgive. Can’t wait to become strong.

Sometimes, when I’m about to fall asleep, I think, ‘What if I don’t wake up this time?’ How can people sleep so fearlessly and so bravely?

I’m trying to think about what I can do. But instead all that comes to mind are the things I can’t do.

I love you as much as the joy I felt.

I wish someone would promise me that nothing is meaningless,” he said. “I wish there were promises worth believing in. That after we’ve been hunted and lonely and anxious and living in fear, there is something else. Considering the way we are living right now, if we were young at the end of our lives instead, then maybe our dreams could come true.

I think that if we all have to say goodbye eventually then the best we can do is try to stay together as long as we possibly can. But it’s not that one of us was right and the other was wrong. We just saw things differently.

I hope that when I die, I will be writing or reading a book at my desk late one snowy night and I will simply put my head down and close my eyes forever. I want that to be the last image of me on this earth.

Compared with when I was young, I am worse now at loving another person.

Growing old does not make us any better at loving one another or understanding the meaning of life or death. Nor does knowledge come with the passage of time.

Will these days ever come again?” My friend had meant it in an offhand way, but the comment cut deep. “Not the same days,” someone said sadly.

We each get one life that is our own. We each in our own way struggle to get ahead, love, grieve, and lose our loved ones to death.