“The chilling thought occurred to me that breaking up with someone you love to criticize might be the only way to save yourself from becoming unlovable”

“Then it occurred to me: You either waited for someone else to do the right thing, or you stood up and did it yourself.”

“When I was younger, I used to think that loving someone meant being weak. I thought it meant giving yourself up and losing your identity, and becoming just an other to someone else. I thought that only those who weren’t strong enough to stand on their own needed someone to lean on. I never realized that love is as much about giving strength as accepting it, and that love doesn’t mean that you can’t stand on your own, but only that now you can fly.”

“...She said we can't save everyone, but we can damned sure as hell fight to save those we love. ... She taught me that we can only do our best. You've done your best. ...not beat yourself up because you missed something or someone. It makes you weak.”

“Davy once asked me if I thought it was better to be a has-been than a never was, but maybe it doesn't make much of a difference. In the end, people are just people, and the only things that matter are whether they are good or bad, loving or unloving, loved or unloved.”

“No child is born a delinquent. They only became that way if nobody loved them when they were kids. Unloved children grow up to be serial murderers or alcoholics.”