“the psyche has been burnedand left us senseless,the world has been darker than lights-outin a closet full of hungry bats,and the whiskey and wine entered our veinswhen blood was too weak to carry on”

“I cry for everything I abandoned and because I, too, have been left behind -- by Alex, by my mom, by time that has cut through our worlds and separated us.”

“No prizefighter can go with high spirits into the strife if he has never been beaten black and blue; the only contestant who can confidently enter the lists is the man who has seen his own blood, who has felt his teeth rattle beneath his opponent's fist, who has been tripped and felt the full force of his adversary's charge, who has been downed in bloody but not it spirit, one who as often as he falls, rises again with greater defiance than ever.”

“I eventually realized that some of us carry a lot and some of us not so much. And it changes at different times of our lives. If your shopping cart is too full, is more than you can maneuver through life, then it's not my place or anyone else's place to say you should've been stronger, been able to carry more.”

“You have walked among us a spirit, and your shadow has been a light upon our faces.”

“Which in the gray of gentler eyes will prove far more than any of us could ever need; 'enough' we will shout, 'enough!' our bellies full, our hearts full, our ages full; fullness and greater fullness and even more fullness; how then we will laugh and forget how imagining has already left us.”