“Before that experience, I had often felt the kind of alone that comes from the suspicion that you are not only genetically different from those around you, but different in your very soul...[then] I was a different kind of alone. I was alone and ashamed of myself...it was no one's fault but mine.”

“I was sure that if I could just scale this fortress I would reach a height with a sunny blue sky and fresh air. I would stand there and experience myself as redeemable rather than ruined. I had no idea what kind of animal I was facing.If you had suggested to me at the time that my problems were due to some faulty wiring, some chemistry experiment gone wrong in my brain, I'd have said you were suggesting that I not take responsibility for my own choices. Now I know I was wrong. Now when I'm haunted by the specter of depression, I recognize it for what it is. I don't systematically dismantle my life every time depression pops out from behind a tree. But at that time, I was sure it was fixable if the world would just change faster, or if I would.”

“Dancing was another one of those choice I made that I didn't know until way later what it really meant.”

“Don't think you can get rid of me that easily. As long as I'm around, you'll never be alone. I do have my reputationto uphold as your, uh, very, close friend, you know. Heck, I'm going to be around so much, you'll probably be begging me to leave.”

“I know something about performing. I know that when it seems like the avalanche is about to roll over you, you face into it and keep both arms swimming as hard as you can. You smile and you sell it.”

“I look for a sign. Where to go next. you never know when you'll get one. Even the most faithless among us are waiting to be proven wrong.”

“And even if it wasn't Madison, it had been hundreds of others and probably hundreds more. That's what happens to your eyes when you spend your nights in the laps of everyone else's husbands.”