“A void in my chest was beginning to fill with anger. Quiet, defeated anger that guaranteed me the right to my hurt, that believed no one could possibly understand that hurt.”

“Once I could see Mom for who she was, and not the mother she had failed to be, I'd be able to forgive her. She was her own person, not just my mother, and it was this person I was forging a relationship with.”

“If you could offer me a guarantee, Ely, a guarantee that the hurt that makes my heart feel like a boulder sitting inside my chest, beatless, if I knew this hurt would eventually go away and I could feel hope again - for me, for you, for us - then maybe my lips could "unlock" now and we could get on with this. The End.”

“I was lonely. I felt it deeply and permanently, that this state of being on my own might never disappear. But I welcomed the lonliness, which had everything to do with being anonymous. It's never lonliness that nibbles away at a person's insides, but not having room inside themselves to be comfortably alone.”

“I rubbed my hand over my chest, just above my heart. Mrs. Casnoff watched with a look of concern. "Did he hurt you?""No," I told her. "He didn't."Nowhere you could see, at least.”

“It's so effortless to let my loneliness defeat me, make me mold myself to whatever would (in some way - but not wholly) relieve it. I must never forget it... I want sensuality and sensitivity, both... Let me never deny that... I want to err on the side of violence and excess, rather than to underfill my moments.”

“My heart literally aches, that shit is not made up; it hurts for an unexpected, brief time warp of suddenly wanting and longing and believing, but then not having.”