“There’s no story that’s the start of itself.”

“The baby explodes into an unknown world that is only knowable through some kind of a story – of course that is how we all live, it’s the narrative of our lives, but adoption drops you into the story after it has started. It’s like reading a book with the first few pages missing. It’s like arriving after curtain up. The feeling that something is missing never, ever leaves you – and it can’t, and it shouldn’t, because something is missing.”

“Trust me, I'm telling you stories. ... I can change the story. I am the story.”

“We are told not to privilege one story above another. All the stories must be told. Well, maybe that's true, maybe all stories are worth hearing, but not all stories are worth telling.”

“It's only a story, you say. So it is, and the rest of life with it - creation story, love story, horror, crime, the strange story of you and I. The alphabet of my DNA shapes certain words, but the story is not told. I have to tell it myself. What is it that I have to tell myself again and again? That there is always a new beginning, a different end. I can change the story. I am the story. Begin.”

“Tell me a story, Pew.What kind of story, child?A story with a happy ending.There’s no such thing in all the world.As a happy ending?As an ending.”

“I choose this story above all others because it's a story I'm struggling to end. ”