“I want everything back, the way it was. But there is no point to it, this wanting.”

“I do not want to go back to the past; I want to go back to the past way of facing the future.”

“Sometimes she would cry. I was so lonely, she'd say. You have no idea how lonely I was. And I had friends, I was a lucky one, but I was lonely anyway.I admired my mother in some ways, although things between us were never easy. She expected too much from me, I felt. She expected me to vindicate her life for her, and the choices she'd made. I didn't want to live my life on her terms. I didn't want to be the model offspring, the incarnation of her ideas. We used to fight about that. I am not your justification for existence, I said her to once.I want her back. I want everything back, the way it was. But there is no point to it, this wanting.”

“I don't really want people looking to me for inspiration. I just want to be a sign along the way that points toward Heaven.”

“It brings me back to the moment, and I want to livethe moment with everything I’ve got.”

“A sure way to lose happiness, I found, is to want it at the expense of everything else.”