When at last I came upon the right book, the feeling was violent: it blew open a hole in me that made life more dangerous because I couldn't control what came through it.

She struggled with her sadness, but tried to conceal it, to divide it into smaller and smaller parts and scatter these in places she thought no one would find them.

I've reached the age where bruises are formed from failures within rather than accidents without.

...after all, who isn't a survivor from the wreck of childhood?

The price we paid for the volumes of ourselves that we suffocated in the dark.

In life we sit at the table and refuse to eat, and in death we are eternally hungry.

There were many things they simply didn't talk about: between them, silence was not so much a form of evasion as a way for solitary people to exist in a family.

I read differently now, more painstakingly, knowing I am probably revisiting the books I love for the last time. (245)

Poor God, how often He is blamed for all the suffering in theworld. It’s like praising Satan for allowing all the good that happens.

Before and after you do your best, know it that you must rely on God. Your best - no matter how great - is nothing if you minus God from the equation.

There are no negatives in life, only challenges to overcome that will make you stronger.

I got the wild style, always been a foul child, My guns go boom-boom, and your guns go pow-pow.

I'm going to do as much as I can for the animal world, and I'll never stop.

What man that sees the ever-whirling wheel Of Change, the which all mortal things doth sway.

Let every family meet once a day or week for a real hearty sing, and their sing will give them more pleasure than they will take all the rest of the day.

...[She] felt as if she were both a stranger to herself and more herself than she'd ever been.

Relinquishing apparent national sovereignty does not have to entail a loss of national sovereignty, but can actually be a benefit.

My mom always encouraged me, it was never weird. She'd look at 'Heavy Metal' and go 'Woo-hoo!'