The world was made up of people putting one foot in front of the other and a life might appear ordinary simply because the person living it had been doing so for a long time.

If we don't go mad once in a while, there's no hope.

If we can't accept what we don't know, there really is no hope.

Beginnings could happen more than once, or in different ways.

It was not a life, if lived without love.

Beginnings could happen more than once or in different ways. You could think you were starting something afresh, when actually what you were doing was carrying on as before. He had faced his shortcomings and overcome them and so the real business of walking was happening only now.

He understood that in walking to atone for the mistakes he had made, it was his journey to accept the strangeness of others. As a passerby, he was in a place where everything, not only the land, was open. People would feel free to talk, and he was free to listen. To carry a little of them as he went.

He must have driven this way countless times, and yet he had no memory of the scenery. He must have been so caught up in the day's agenda, and arriving punctually at their destination, that the land beyond the car had been no more than a wash of one green, and a backdrop of one hill. Life was very different when you walked through it.

The least planned part of the journey, however, was the journey itself.

I miss her all the time. I know in my head that she has gone. the only difference is that I am getting used to the pain. It's like discovering a great hole in the ground. To begin with, you forget it's there and keep falling in. After a while, it's still there, but you learn to walk round it.

...People would make the decisions they wished to make and some of them would hurt both themselves and those who loved them, and some would pass unnoticed, while others would bring joy.

He understood that in walking to atone for the mistakes he had made, it was also his journey to accept the strangeness of others.