“You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful.”

“I think the most important thing in the world is being brave. I'd rathe be brave than beautiful. Hell, I'd settle for acting brave. ”

“The past is a candle at great distance: too close to let you quit, too far to comfort you.”

“Some people are your family no matter when you find them, and some people are not, even if you are laid, still wet and crumpled, in their arms.”

“You cannot fake effort; talent is great, but perseverance is necessary.”

“In stories, when someone behaves uncharacteristically, we take it as a meaningful, even pivotal moment. If we are surprised again and again, we have to keep changing our minds, or give up and disbelieve the writer. In real life, if people think they know you well enough not only to say, 'It's Tuesday, Amy must be helping out at the library today,' but well enough to say to the librarian, after you've left the building, 'You know, Amy just loves reading to the four-year-olds, I think it's been such a comfort for her since her little boy died'—if they know you like that, you can do almost anything where they can't see you, and when they hear about it, they will, as we do, simply disbelieve the narrator.”

“Everyone has two memories. The one you can tell and the one that is stuck to the underside of that, the dark, tarry smear of what happened.”