“It is a terrible and exquisitely human irony that children inadequately nurtured almost never give up on the breast. The thirst for love from a mother or father who cannot provide it is seemingly unquenchable. I have treated sixty- and seventy-year-old business executives, politicians, and physicians still desperate for approval from shriveled, emotionally barren men and women in their eighties and nineties. (257)”

“Most children would rather preserve the fantasy of a loving connection with their fathers and mothers, at all costs, even if it costs them their self-esteem. When you're three or seven years old, it's less frightening to think of yourself as an unlovable, disappointing screwup than to recognize the fact that you're living with a monster.”

“There's no original evil left in the world. Everyone's just recycling pain. (257)”

“As if you don’t already know all this, men who beat up on women are different than the rest of us. Okay? They’re unhinged. Out there. Without feelings. And anyone arrogant enough to violate an order of the court, when it could get him a year or more in jail, is different, too. He doesn’t get the idea of boundaries – like, where his life stops and other people’s start.' He let his hands settle back to his coffee cup. If you or I were the subject of a restraining order, we’d be twenty miles from ground zero at all times. We’re not gonna screw with the justice system once it buries its teeth in us.' He paused, sipped his coffee.”

“Everything terrible is something that needs our love. - Rilke (231)”

“Woody Allen once said that 90 percent of life is about showing up. Ninety percent of healing people in psychological pain is shutting up - at least long enough to let them bleed the truth. That sounds easy, but it isn't. (68)”

“...the horrific fact that our lives and those of the people we love are impermanent and exquisitely fragile, that any of us can cease to exist without warning, that loving anyone, anywhere, at any time, leaves you infinitely vulnerable at every single moment. (20)”