“I am becoming used to an overwhelming, grinding mixture of anger and worry...”

“Through Nic's drug addiction, I have learned that parents can bear almost anything....I shock myself with my ability to rationalize and tolerate things once unthinkable. The rationalizations escalate....It's only marijuana. He gets high only on weekends. At least he's not using hard drugs....”

“I didn't cause it. I can't control it. I can't cure it.”

“That's when it struck me that I can't take my life as long as I can still laugh.”

“I know there is no point in haranguing him because he will just shut down, but I want to cover every angle.”

“In his suicide note, Kurt Cobain wrote, "It's better to burn out than to fade away." He was quoting a Neil Young song about Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols. When I was twenty-four, I interviewed John Lennon. I asked him about this sentiment, one that pervades rock and roll. He took strong, outraged exception to it. "It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out, " he said. "I worship people who survive. I'll take the living and the healthy.”

“I'm not sure if I know any 'functional' families, if functional means a family without difficult times and members who don't have a full range of problems.”