“Parents aren't the people you come from. They're the people you want to be, when you grow up.”

“If you want to love a parent you have to understand the incredible investment he or she has in you. If you are a parent, and you want to be loved, you have to deserve it.”

“As it turned out, hell wasn't watching the people you love get hurt; it was coming in during the second act, when it was already too late to stop it from happening.”

“All teenagers knew this was true. The process of growing up was nothing more than figuring out what doors hadn't yet been slammed in your face. For years, parents tell you that you can be anything, have anything, do anything. That was why she'd been so eager to grow up-until she got to adolescence and hit a big fat wall ofreality. As it turned out, she couldn't have anything she wanted. You didn't get to be pretty or smart or popular just because you wanted it. You didn't control your own destiny, you were too busy trying to fit in.”

“I wonder if other mothers feel a tug at their insides, watching their children grow up into the people they themselves wanted so badly to be.”

“Memories aren't stored in the heart or the head or even the soul, if you ask me, but in the spaces between any given two people.”

“There was a difference between people looking at you because they wanted to be like you, and people looking at you because your misfortune brought them one rung higher.”