"We all live in our own world. But if you look up at the starry sky, you'll see that all the different worlds up there combine to form constellations, solar systems, galaxies . . . " 
 "Each human being is unique, each with their own qualities, instincts, forms of pleasure, and desire for adventure. However, society always imposes on us a collective way of behaving, and people never stop to wonder why they should behave like that. They just accept it, the way typists accepted that the QWERTY keyboard was the best possible one. Have you ever met anyone in your entire life who asked why the hands on the clock should go in one particular direction and not the other?" 
 "If everyone - just lived their lives and let others do the same, God would be in every moment, in every grain of mustard, in the fragment of cloud that is there one moment and gone the next. God was there and yet people believed they still had to go on looking because it seemed to simple to accept that life was an act of faith." 
 This book raised so many questions in my mind, questions I had not really pondered before, and I am so glad I reflected on now. The Alchemist did the same for me in my early 20s so I have to say that Paulo Coelho is certainly a top contender for my favorite author. 
 The story of Veronika is so fascinating, even though in other pieces of literature I have read the protagonist wanting to commit suicide leads me to believe they probably are better off doing it. While I never found myself hoping she killed herself, I also wasn't really on board with her sticking around either. When she is told that her attempted suicide damaged her heart irreversibly, she suddenly finds that she may want to live. 
 Living her last days out in an asylum, she meets people who are all there for the most profound and thought provoking reasons. This book raised a lot of questions about mental health and what we define as normal in our society and just what it is that causes all the hangups we all seem to have in one way or another. 
 I could go into the plot of the story which is okay, but the truth is, the greatest part of this book is the very questions it poses and the answers it inspires. One of my favorite books hands down.