“I promise to always be here when you wake up.”

“I love you Mark. You gave me my life back.”

“You should be able to have everything you want… you should be a mommy and a wife and you shouldn’t have to live with your life being threatened at every turn.”

“You can’t understand what it’s like to have the choice taken away, a man forcing himself on you. Not caring if you want or don’t want… and that powerlessness. Not being strong enough to stop – not having any control. It’s something that never goes away.”

“I handed him my heart, soul, and spirit on a silver platter and he crushed them into a million pieces.”

“But here's something that I know about friendship: Sometimes the right thing to do is to not point out that your friend hasn't touched her chicken fingers or French fries and not point that maybe she's just overreacting. Instead, you just smile and sit with her and say, "I understand" when really, you don't understand her at all.”

“There are days when you wonder why these wretched old tatters of paper run my life. It's just leftover scraps from vanished lives, right? And they seem to control your every waking thought, all of your movements, even how you breathe, sometimes, with the fragile stuff. Your whole life. But then something comes along, a clue or sometimes the solution to a puzzle, and it sets you on fire!”