"We held hands just once. She was leading me somewhere and grabbed my hand as if to say, This way—hurry up. Our hands were clasped together ten seconds at most, but to me it felt more like thirty minutes. When she let go of my hand, I was suddenly lost. It was all very natural, the way she took my hand, but I knew she's been dying to do so.

The feel of her hand has never left me. It was different from any other hand I'd ever held, different from any other touch I've ever known. It was merely the small, warm hand of a twelve-year-old girl, yet those five fingers and that palm were like a display case crammed full of everything I wanted to know—and everything I had to know. By taking my hand, she showed me what these things were. That within the real world, a place like this existed. In the space of those ten seconds I became a tiny bird, fluttering into the air, the wind rushing by. From high in the sky I could see a scene far away. It was so far off I couldn't make it out clearly, yet something was there, and I knew that someday I would travel to that place. This revelation made me catch my breath and made my chest tremble.

I returned home, and sitting at my desk, I gazed for a long time at the fingers Shimamoto had grasped. I was ecstatic that she'd held my hand. Her gentle hand warmed my heart for days. At the same time it confused me, made me perplexed, even sad in a way. How could I possibly come to terms with that warmth?"

—Murakami Haruki, South of the Border, West of the Sun

"Time passes in moments... moments which, rushing past, define the path of a life, just as surely as they lead towards its end. How rarely do we stop to examine that path, to see the reasons why all things happen, to consider whether the path we take in life is our own making, or simply one into which we drift with eyes closed. But what if we could stop, pause to take stock of each precious moment before it passes? Might we then see the endless forks in the road that have shaped a life? And, seeing those choices, choose another path?"

X-files, 7x17

"Grief squeezed at her eggshell heart like it might break into a thousand pieces, its contents running like broken promises into the hollow places his love used to fill. How could she know this pain would end? That love, unlike matter or energy, was in endless supply in the universe... A germ which grows from nothingness which cannot be eradicated, even from the darkest of hearts. If she had known this - and who could say she would believe it? - She would not have chanced to remain at his sad grave until such an hour so that she might not have to learn the second truth before the first: that to have love was to carry a vessel that could be lost or stolen. Or worse, spilled blood-red on the ground. And that love was not immutable and could become hate as day becomes night. As life becomes death."

This is from, of all things, an X-files episode. Scully totally made me cry.