“You can’t be another person’s honesty, child, but you can be your own.”

“you can’t punish someone for a lack of affection, can you? You can’t force a child to love you just because he’s your child.”

“You don’t know what goes on in anyone’s life but your own. And when you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re not messing with just that part. Unfortunately, you can’t be that precise and selective. When you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re messing with their entire life. Everything. . . affects everything.”

“To gaze into another person’s face is to do two things: to recognize their humanity, and to assert your own.”

“When you get to that point where you notice a person’s faults, you’ve got to decide if you can live with them or can’t live without them.”

“You can’t change the road you traveled from a child, but you can certainly take a different road for the journey into your future.”