“The MistakeWith the mistake your life goes in reverse.Now you can see exactly what you didWrong yesterday and wrong the day beforeAnd each mistake leads back to something worseAnd every nuance of your hypocrisyTowards yourself, and every excuseStands solidly on the perspective linesAnd there is perfect visibility.What an enlightenment. The colonnadeRolls past on either side. You needn't move.The statues of your errors brush your sleeve.You watch the tale turn back — and you're dismayed.And this dismay at this, this big mistakeIs made worse by the sight of all those whoKnew all along where these mistakes would lead — Those frozen friends who watched the crisis break.Why didn't they say? Oh, but they did indeed — Said with a murmur when the time was wrongOr by a mild refusal to assentOr told you plainly but you would not heed.Yes, you can hear them now. It hurts. It's worseThan any sneer from any enemy.Take this dismay. Lay claim to this mistake.Look straight along the lines of this reverse.”

“What you did in the past is your business. Those were your choices—your mistakes—if you even believe they were mistakes. Stop caring what anyone thinks and live your life the way you want to live it.”

“And if they really fuck it up and do make a horrible mistake, which can happen to anyone, from any culture, you still have to sit back and watch from the sidelines. It's their life. What you need is a life of your own. You can't hang on to them forever and live theirs or stop them from making mistakes. That's the deal. Once they grow up, they belong to themselves, not to us.”

“..all I left with was the magnitude of my mistake, of my missing you. And I have to watch you from this distance, watch you achieve your dreams, live what seemed like this perfect life.”

“If people refuse to look at you in a new light and they can only see you for what you were, only see you for the mistakes you've made, if they don't realize that you are not your mistakes, then they have to go.”

“You get started on something and you go where it takes you and you set aside other things because you don't have any choice. Because if you didn't set them aside you would never be able to go on. And then if you're lucky enough you get back to where you started and you realize your mistake. You realize how difficult it is to keep everything in your heart at the same time. How impossible. You can only keep so much and still go on. You come back for the rest if you're lucky enough.”