“Life is a struggle, I would tell him. Some days are better than others, and every person's life is bittersweet, filled with joy and pain.”

“Never underestimate the pain of a person, because in all honesty, everyone is struggling. Some people are just better at hiding it than others.”

“I was thinking of people who say that happiness is impossible on earth. Look how hard they all try to find some joy in life. Look how they struggle for it. Why should any living creature exist in pain? By what conceivable right can anyone demand that a human being exist for anything but for his own joy? Every one of them wants it. Every part of him wants it. But they never find it. I wonder why.”

“The kind of life I want is to be a person who would get a personal note every day.”

“I went into motherhood with some pretty romantic notions about what being a mom would be like. I certainly thought that raising kids would be easier than I have found it to be. I also naively imagined that every day with my little ones would be almost effortlessly filled with joy.”

“For it would be better to die once and for all than to suffer pain for all one's life.”