Amazing

After piecing my way through it since January, I finished reading Les Miserables yesterday afternoon. It was truly one of the most amazing books I've ever read and I'm so grateful that I took the time to do it. Every so often, I read a book that has a profound influence on the way I think and feel about life itself. In spite of the seeming depression of this story, it was incredibly uplifting; gently leading the reading along, teaching truths.

I don't know if I'll ever read this book again. I'd like to think that I will. But for now, I'm letting it in to my life, hopefully to change me for the better.

Be it true or false, what is said about men often has as much influence upon their lives, and especially upon their destinies, as what they do.

It is a mistake to imagine that man can exhaust his destiny, or can reach the bottom of anything whatever. Alas! what are all these destinies thus driven pell-mell? whither go they? why are they so? He who knows that, sees all the shadow. He is alone. His name is God.

Laughter is sunshine; it chases winter from the human face.

Happy, even in anguish, is he to whom God has given a soul worthy of love and of grief! He who has not seen the things of this world, and the hearts of men by this double light, has seen nothing, and knows nothing of the truth.

It is nothing to die; it is horrible not to live.

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved, loved for ourselves, or rather loved in spite of ourselves.—Victor Hugo