“When you hang on to your past, you are gripping an anchor that is swiftly moving to the bottom of the ocean. Sure, you have something to hang on to, but you are drowning, too.”

“The store was closed so I went home and hugged what I own.”

“If you have survived an abuser, and you tried to make things right… If you forgave, and you struggled, and even if the expression of your grief and your anger tumbled out at times in too much rage and too many words… If you spent years hanging on to the concepts of faith, hope, and love, even after you knew in your heart that those intangibles, upon which life is formed and sustained, would fail in the end… And especially, if you stood between your children - or anyone - and him, and took the physical, emotional, and spiritual pummeling in their stead, then you are a hero.”

“If I had learned anything by hanging out with her and her friends, it was that once you got up close to people, you realized that everyone - no matter how popular he or she might be - was just a living, breathing human being...”

“So begins the exhausting analysis of the cavalcade of unknowable smiles and cryptic sentences uttered by someone your newly interested in. When everything boils down to a succession of enigmatic moments. Moments played and replayed from the perspective you attribute to your lover-to-be, but that are actually from the part of you that's sure you're far too flawed to be loved.”

“The grass may be greener on the other side, but you still have to move the lawn.”

“Write down everything you remember. You’ll want to have it written down to look back on later, when your mind sands all the sharp edges off your memory and makes it into a dream that it will have you believe is true.”