“There comes a time when a house owns you and you know you have to get free of it, and go on with the rest of your life.”

“Because you have to just go with the flow. Your life is not your own, with people coming in and out all the time. You get mellow because you have to.”

“It's no good trying to get rid of your own aloneness. You've got to stick to it all your life. Only at times, at times, the gap will be filled in. At times! But you have to wait for the times. Accept your own aloneness and stick to it, all your life. And then accept the times when the gap is filled in, when they come. But they've got to come. You can't force them.”

“If you're lucky, the friends you make when you're sixteen stay with you for the rest of your life. If you're smart, you know when it's time to let them go.”

“Get used to it. She'll be there for the rest of your life. She'll be there on birthdays, at Christmastime, when you get your period, when you graduate, have sex, when you marry, have children, when you die. She'll be there and she won't be there.”

“There are heroes, and there are the rest of us. There comes a time when you just let go the ghost of the better person you might have been.”