“Wie bald 'nicht jetz' 'nie' wird. How soon 'not now' becomes 'never'.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“We all talk about how much we hate lies. Yet we prefer, so often, to be lied to....because it allows us to dodge all those painful truths we'd rather not hear.”

“We all end up ruing everything. It's the nature of this thing we call 'our condition.' Could, but didn't...Wanted to, but stopped myself...All the damn statements of regret we can never dodge.”

“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 ...”