“This was a land of lost souls. Human beings who had weathered great storms in life, had suffered unspeakable loss, had been put to painful tests of existence, and still remained standing—but just barely.”

“And then their voices stopped and their souls stood still and they ceased being who they had been. Because who they were had always been determined by him.”

“He had been standing still; for an artist, one of the more painful forms of death.”

“They are committing the greatest indignity human beings can inflict on one another: telling people who have suffered excruciating pain and loss that their pain and loss were illusions. (v)”

“Bad things happen to everyone. Not that this was an excuse or a justification for wronging another human being. Still, all humans had this shared experience — that of suffering. No human being left this world without shedding a tear, or feeling pain, or wading into the sea of sorrow.”

“The naïve girl in me had been bitch-slapped into womanhood. I’d been razed by pain, grief, loss and suffering, and honed by lust, rage and an acute awareness of my need to survive.”