“It was just one more pre­dictable mass sui­cide in a world filled with splin­ter groups that limp along un­til they’re con­front­ed.”

“Don’t ask me when be­cause I don’t re­mem­ber, but some­where along the way I keep for­get­ting to com­mit sui­cide.”

“Kids, she says. When they’re little, they believe everything you tell them about the world. As a mother, you’re the world almanac and the encyclopedia and the dictionary and the Bible, all rolled up together. But after they hit some magic age, it’s just the opposite. After that, you’re either a liar or a fool or a villain.”

“History is filled with brilliant people who wanted to fix things and just made them worse.”

“Parenthood is the opiate of the masses.”

“At almost every meeting since then, Big Bob has made me cry. I never went back to the doctor. I never chewed the valerian root.This was freedom. Losing all hope was freedom. If I didn't say anything, people in a group assumed the worst. They cried harder, I cried harder. Look up into the stars and you're gone.Walking home after a support group, I felt more alive than I'd ever felt. I wasn't host to cancer or blood parasites; I was the little warm center that the life of the world crowded around.”

“People are all over the world telling their one dramatic story and how their life has turned into getting over this one event. Now their lives are more about the past than their future.”