“The favorite game of temperamental people is Try to Guess Why I’m Ticked Off. (Contestant number one, Why do YOU think he’s pissed off? Why, I’m not sure, Bob, but I’m going to go with ‘Because I Left the Faucet Dripping.’ BEEP. I’m sorry, that’s incorrect. The correct answer is: ‘Because You Happen to Exist.’)”

“This is not just a simple story of "money can't buy happiness." Or maybe that's just what it is. And if it is, why shouldn't it be? Because if this is something we are already supposed to know, then why don't we know it? Why do we chase and scrabble and fight for things to flaunt, why? Why do we reach for power over other people, and through the thin superiority of our possessions, believe we have it? Why do we let money make people bigger, and allow those without it to be made smaller? How did we lose the truth in the frantic, tribal drumbeat of more, more, more?”

“Stories help you understand your life,she’d say. Stories can heal. And I think she’s right, because why do old guys back from the war tell their experiences again and again? Why did people of long ago make up elaborate tales of mythical beings? Why do people sit in a room and reveal the pieces of their life to doctors trained to listen, and why are they cured by doing that? Whylibraries? Come on, all those stories, pieces of life told again and again. We need them. Stories are a ritual that put all the crazy shit about life into a form that makes sense. We’re all like the little kids that need to be read the same story over and over again.”

“So I forcibly shove aside my prickles of pissed-off, which is easier than it sounds when millions of little sequined caffeine dancers are doing their big Broadway number on your internal stage. (Page 173)”

“Those questions you have? Whether he's the one, whether you feel about him the way you should, or whether the relationship is going okay? When you're not sure whether you're in love with someone or not, the answer is not.”

“He’s good, all right,” Mom said. “But I guess there’s something else. About being sure. Sure about anything. Right comes with right timing.”

“Because that’s how it works after something terrible has happened. You know this is true if something terrible has ever happened to you. A thousand objects take on new meaning. Everything is a reminder of something else.”