“When you look for these support groups, they all have vague upbeat names. My Thursday evening group for blood parasites, it's called Free and Clear.”

“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.”

“The liberator who destroys my property is fighting to save my spirit. The teacher who clears all possessions from my path will set me free.”

“This is why I loved the support groups so much, if people thought you were dying, they gave you their full attention. If this might be the last time they saw you, they really saw you. Everything else about their checkbook balance and radio songs and messy hair went out the window. You had their full attention. People listened instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. And when they spoke, they weren't just telling you a story. When the two of you talked, you were building something, and afterward you were both different than before.”

“The first group I went to, there were introductions: this is Alice, this is Brenda, this is Dover. Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head.”

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

“It's only after you have lost everything that you are free to do anything.”