“You don't even like swimming! You can't jump in without holding your nose," she points out.True.But if I were at the country club with the other kids my age, I would glide in from the shallow end or just plain jump in and drown. At least I'd die cool.”

“I'd give anything to make things right for you." He caressed my cheek, my hair, my back. Everywhere he touched, the angry fires cooled. I wished he'd touch my heart. "But I can't. I can help, but the hard work is all up to you. If you don't feel real, no one else can do it for you. I promise, though you've always felt real to me. From the moment I saw you jump off the cliff.""Sometimes I feel like I'm still jumping off the cliff.”

“I’ve said to my kids, ‘I don’t want you to think I jumped away from you and clicked my heels and said bon voyage. It wasn’t like that at all. It just about destroyed me.'”

“My first intervention is to say, when your baby is born, just don't jump on your kid at night," Cohen says, "Give your baby a chance to self-soothe, don't automatically respond, even from birth.”

“I felt confident that she wouldn't find out what a chicken I was,because after the comp,if I hadn't gone off the jump,I would be dead of shame.And if I had gone off the jump,I would be just plain dead.”

“I pointed at the little kids goading each other to jump from rib cage to shoulder and Gus answered just loud enough for me to hear over the din, 'Last time, I imagined myself as the kid. This time, the skeleton.”