“It doesn't matter how greatly you've been hurt or how much you're hurting, it's what you do with the pain that counts. You could cry for years or you could choose to learn and grow from it.”

“Well, I never been to much school, you understand, but it seems to me that you're assuming something you shouldn't assume... that God sees the world like you do; one thing at a time, from just one spot. Seems to me that he's supposed to be everywhere, know everything. ...Think about that; he knows what you're feeling, how you're hurting. Feels my pain, your pain like it was his own. Hell son, the question isn't how God could care about just one person; question is, how could he not?”

“But now...it's like when part of you stops hurting and suddenly you're yourself again, healthy and whole, and only then do you understand that you've been in pain for a while.”

“no matter how big his smile or how loud his laugh, you could hear the hurt underneath.”

“When you finally come out, there's a pain that stops, and you know it will never hurt like that again, no matter how much you lose or how bad you die.”

“But lassies are trained for it, in a manner of speaking; it's part of the growing-up process for them, young females. It doesn't happen with boys, just if you're a lassie, you've got to learn how not to talk; plus how not to look, you get trained how not to look. How not to look and how not to talk. You get trained how not to do things.”