Quotes from Michael Cunningham

He insists on a version of you that is funnier, stranger, more eccentric and profound than you suspect yourself to be--capable of doing more good and more harm in the world than you've ever imagined--it is all but impossible not to believe, at least in his presence and a while after you've left him, that he alone sees through your essence, weighs your true qualities . . . and appreciates you more fully than anyone else ever has.

There is still that singular perfection, and it's perfect in part because it seemed, at the time, so clearly to promise more.

This is what you do. You make a future for yourself out of the raw material at hand.