“It's not an easy choice, but that's OK. Easy doesn't equal good. Difficulty doesn't equal bad.It's just life, is all.”

“In baseball, when you get into the batter's box, that's it. It's just you. It's one man against the world. All that matters in that moment is your individual achievement and your individual skill. There is literally nothing that anyone else on your team can do for you. Hell, they're all sitting on the bench, waiting to see what happens, just like the fans in the crowd! It's just you and your bat. And the ball.”

“Kevin: 'Hey, Dad. How do you stop people from being stupid?'Dad: 'You don't.'Kevin: 'Really?'Dad: 'I've tried to explain to people when they're being stupid, but then I realized something: Most people like being stupid.'Kevin: 'I don't get it.'Dad: 'Some people just prefer it. It makes their lives easier if they let other people think for them.'Kevin: 'But that doesn't make sense. That's just stu...Oh...”

“See, forgiveness doesn't happen all at once. It's not an event -- it's a process. Forgiveness happens while you're asleep, while you're dreaming, while you're inline at the coffee shop, while you're showering, eating, farting, jerking off. It happens in the back of your mind, and then one day you realize that you don't hate the person anymore, that your anger has gone away somewhere. And you understand. You've forgiven them. You don't know how or why. It sneaked up on you. It happened in the small spaces between thoughts and in the seconds between ideas and blinks. That's where forgiveness happens. Because anger and hatred, when left unfed, bleed away like air from a punctured tire, over time and days and years. Forgiveness is stealth. At least, that's what I hope.”

“This is why I forgive, but I don't forget. When you forget someone, the forgiveness doesn't mean anything anymore.”

“It's like this," he'd explained once to Connie. "If someone gave you a single rose, you'd be happy, right?" "Okay," he went on, "Now imagine someone gives you ten thousand roses.""That is a whole lotta roses," she said. "That's too much.""Right. Too much. But more than that, it makes each individual rose much less special, right? It makes it hard to pick one out and say, 'That's the good one.' And it makes you want to just get rid of them all because none of them seem special now."Connie had narrowed her eyes. "Are you saying when you're at school you just want to get rid of everyone?”

“You and your scars. Please! You don't kill youself like this!" I gesture, holding a wrist turned up to the ceiling, then pretending to cut across it with my other hand. "That's just a cry for help. That's just attention. Everbody knows that. Cutting across just gets you to the hospital. That's just from movies and TV shows and stuff like that. You didn't really try to kill yourself. you just wanted attention, but you screwed up. Try harder next time.”