“People sometimes speak in code, often without realizing they are doing so, as much a mystery to themselves as others.”
“Life sometimes separates people so that they can realize how much they mean to each other.”
“My grandfather said white people can't exist without speaking. He said they're all just imitations of each other, so it's like they have to speak to distinguish themselves.”
“If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.”
“Lukewarm people love others but do not seek to love others as much as they love themselves.”
“Life, she realized, so often became a determined, relentless avoidance of pain-of one's own, of other people's. But sometimes pain had to be acknowledged and even touched so that one could move into it and through it and past it. Or else be destroyed by it.”