“It's amazing how we push against things, things that in our depths we know we want, we know are good for us, yet we continue to deny ourselves with a conviction unmatched. Maybe we do it because we don't think we deserve that one true, good thing. Are we worthy? It's the most extraordinary thing, to embrace the life you never saw yourself living." -Harley LeBeau, The Boots My Mother Gave Me”

“My sixth grade sex education class quickly came to mind, and I wondered why masturbation was discussed when addressing the adolescent male, but not mentioned once in the 'normal' sexual development of the adolescent female. Go figure. Boys got masturbation. We got our period!" - Harley LeBeau, The Boots My Mother Gave Me”

“We may know ourselves, and yet even with all the efforts we make, we do not know ourselves. We know our fellowman, and yet we do not know him, because we are not a thing, and our fellowman is not a thing. The further we reach into the depths of our being, on someone else's being, the more the goal of knowledge eludes us.”

“I am one of the searchers. There are, I believe, millions of us. We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content. We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret. We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand. We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty. We like forests and mountains, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well. Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter. To share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know - unless it be to share our laughter. We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide. Most of all we love and want to be loved. We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give. We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.For wanderers, dreamers, and lovers, for lonely men and women who dare to ask of life everything good and beautiful. It is for those who are too gentle to live among wolves.”

“Within each of us, there lies the innate ability to survive, triumph, and overcome, rewriting the scripts of our own lives, having some power over our fate and the fate of generations to come. Nothing has to be 'just because that's the way it's always been.' -The Boots My Mother Gave Me”

“Another thing I think about names is that they DO hurt. They hurt because we believe them. We think they are telling us something true about ourselves, something other people can see even if we don't. —Bobby Goodspeed”

“He grinned, raising the glass to his lips, the liquid wetting his mouth. I wanted to be that glass. -from chapter Hurts So Good, The Boots My Mother Gave Me”