“When the heart stops oozing blood & the outpouring is clear as water (so to speak) then you know you've turned the corner & will be well.When you look inward & all pathwaysare no longer dark but clearly lighted& shine like transparent drinking strawsthen you know you'll find your way alone.When the gray morning has nothing to do with you & doesn't weigh you downlike a heavy blanket, then you knowthat moving will be easy again and your body will flow through timelike the river it really is, smooth & deep.no rocks, no shallows to smash or catch you,keep you from moving on.When the heart slowsto its normal rhythm and the beautyof birdsong at dawn doesn't make you cry because you are alone listening, then you know that everything has happened that is going to for now, and you can get on withyour life & everything about it that was yours alone and always finer thananyone could ever imagine it would bewithout him. ”

“Listen she said, everything ends, every single relationship you will ever have in your lifetime is going to end.... I'll die, you'll die, you'll get tired of each other. You don't always know how it's going to happen, but it is always going to happen. So stop trying to make everything permanent, it doesn't work. I want you to go out there and find some nice man you have no intention of spending the rest of your life with. You can be very, very happy with people you aren't going to marry.”

“I know, it looks pure and beautiful to you now, at your great old age of twenty-two. But do you know what it means? Thirty years of a lost cause, that sounds beautiful, doesn't it? But do you know how many days there are in thirty years? Do you know what happens in those days?... I want you to know what's in store for you. There will be days when you'll look at your hands and you'll want to take something and smash every bone in them, because they'll be taunting you with what they could do, if you found a chance for them to do it, and you can't find that chance, and you can't bear your living body because it has failed those hands somewhere.”

“When something tragic has happened, you'll find that you, the tragicee, become the person that has to make everything comfortable for everyone else....As a tragicee and future divorcee, you'll also find that people will question you on the biggest decisions you've ever made in your life as though you hadn't thought about them at all before – as though, through their twenty questions and dubious faces, they're going to shine light on something that you missed the hundredth time around during your darkest hours.”

“It's not about fear. It's about never feeling clean, spending years scrubbing your soul raw so you can eat without feeling nauseous, can look in the mirror and meet your own eyes when you put on makeup, brush your hair. To learn to be strong, to run your life and not be a victim of it, knowing in your heart that everything you've built is sitting on a foundation that can sink at any time. And you build it anyway, on faith alone that it won't be shattered, when everything in your life tells you that faith is a fucking joke, but you do it anyway. You do it anyway.(...)”

“To find the balance you want, this is what you must become. You must keep your feet grounded so firmly on the earth that it's like you have 4 legs instead of 2. That way, you can stay in the world. But you must stop looking at the world through your head. You must look through your heart, instead. That way, you will know God.”