“But the strangest of all sensations is the moment after you have been freed of the baby--and the baby of you--and you are handed this tiny shriveled creature to hold for the first time... and you feel a mixture of unbelievable instant love and desperate fear.”

“But can you ever excise a bad parent? Though you might come to terms with all that they have psychologically bequeathed you, they can never really be expunged. They're the stubborn, permanent stain that will never entirely vanish in the wash.”

“The only time you truly become an adult is when you finally forgive your parents for being just as flawed as everyone else.”

“All our stories are simultaneously unique and desperately similar, aren't they?”

“...hate is a hard thing to sustain. Grief isn't. Grief is something that can stay with you for a very long time”

“Discipline is all about the imposition of control-the belief that, by following a precise regime and avoiding distractions, you can somehow keep the disorder of life at bay.”

“Once you've crossed over into that realm of nothingness, your story only really stays in the minds of those closest to you. And when they too vanish...”