“I don't think we choked this time. We never played well enough to choke.”

“Why should we remain innocent of what lurks in the shadows? How can we live in the world if we don't understand how dark and brutal it can be?”

“I used to imagine that if I got up early enough in the morning and went to Pebbly Beach, I'd find my special someone walking along the shore front, waiting. But she was never there.”

“We never have that kind of fun now. Thinking of that made me sad. I hope we can have fun again sometime. I found out that I still know how. Maybe you still know how too.”

“Some people, no, you're never going to change their opinions. It doesn't mean you have to accept it. If they're bold enough to stare or make snide little comments under their breath, then they need to be bold enough to say it to my face.”

“America truly is the best idea for a country that anyone has ever come up with so far. Not only because we value democracy and the rights of the individual, but because we are always our own most effective voice of descent....We must never mistake disagreement between Americans on political or moral issues to be an indication of their level of patriotism. If you don't like what I say or don't agree with where I stand on certain issues, then good. I'm glad we're in America, and don't have to oppress each other over it. We're not just a nation, we're not an ethnicity. We are a dream of justice that people have had for a thousand years.”

“Shame usually follows a pattern—a cycle of self-recrimination and lies that claims life after life. First, we experience an intensely painful event. Second, we believe the lie that our pain and failure is who we are—not just something we’ve done, or had done to us—and we experience shame. And finally, our feelings of shame trap us into thinking that we can never recover—that, in fact, we don’t even deserve to.”