“I would have made a terrible parent. The first time my child didn't do what I wanted, I'd kill him.”

“You didn't kill him. He would have killed you, but you didn't kill him.""So? He was stupid. If I killed everyone who was stupid, I wouldn't have time to sleep.”

“If I didn't have my parents to think about I'd have given in my notice a long time ago, I'd have gone up to the boss and told him just what I think, tell him everything I would, let him know just what I feel. He'd fall right off his desk! And it's a funny sort of business to be sitting up there at your desk, talking down at your subordinates from up there, especially when you have to go right up close because the boss is hard of hearing.”

“What if I'd been wrong all this time? I'd been so angry that God didn't fit the description I wanted him to fit.”

“I didn't want to make the same mistake my parents made. I didn't want my love to fade away one day like an old scar. I wanted it to burn forever.”

“. . . I would have let him go one finger at a time, until, without his realizing, he'd be floating without me. And then I thought, perhaps that is what it means to be a [parent] - to teach your child to live without you.”