"I once believed that life was a gift. I thought whatever I wanted I would someday possess. Is that greed, or only youth? Is it hope or stupidity? As far as I was concerned the future was a book I could write to suit myself, chapter after chapter of good fortune. All was right with the world, and my place in it was assured, or so I thought then. I had no idea that all stories unfold like whit flowers, petal by petal, each in its own time and season, dependent on circumstance and fate. The future is something no one can foretell."
From Green Angel by Alice Hoffman