“Is this every kid's worst fear - that his mother and father don't love him? It was mine. (239)”
“We never talked about the future. We never talked about what would happen when we got out of Rancho Linda. I don't know if that's being a teenager, or being a teenager in a place like Rancho Linda, but you lived only for the day, or only for the moment. It was all about getting through whatever was happening right now. You didn't worry too much about what was coming later, because right now was all you could deal with. It was like you were in a river, caught in the current, and you were going whatever way it took you. You knew you had no control over your own destiny-- so you didn't dream, and you didn't plan. There was no reason to plan. You knew you had to survive what you were going through, and the way to make it survivable was to try to have fun.”
“We are all victims of what is done to us. We can either use that as an excuse for failure, knowing that if we fail it isn't really our fault, or we can say, 'I want something better than that, I deserve something better than that, and i'm going to try to make myself a life worth living.”
“When we realize, really get to know what stinkers we are, it takes only a little depression to tip the scales in favor of suicide. - Dr. Walter Freeman (62)”
“One of the greatest things a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”
“My father was quiet ' she told him. 'My mother was not. They were polar opposites but you'd think they were a match made in heaven the way he loved her and she him. He'd sit and listen to her play for hours like it was their special language. I miss that the most their music. It made me feel . . . part of something beautiful.”
“You should express regularly to your wife and children your reverence and respect for her. Indeed, one of the greatest things a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”