“There were moments when I felt seriously unhinged; when I was convinced that I would never, ever recover from what had happened, when it was absolutely clear to me that life from this point on would be constant agony ...”

“... the perennial outsider with his nose to the window, looking in on a world from which he felt excluded.”

“We can rarely tell others what we really think about them--not just because it would so wound them, but also because it would so wound ourselves.”

“We can never change the story that made us what we are. It's a story accumulated by the manifold complexities-its capacity for astonishment and horror, for sanguinity and hopelessness, for pellucid light and the most profound darkness. We are what happened to us. And we carry everywhere all that has shaped us-all that we lacked, all that we wanted but never got; all that we got but never wanted; all that was found and lost.”

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

“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...”

“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.”