“I am not an idiot. I know the dangers in what I am about to do, but it is the only way I can live with myself.” –Joseph Dahr.”

“You're all I care about," I said. "No. And me. The person I am when I'm with you, the way I see myself and know myself. That person who lives only when I'm with you.”

“It's all about being in control of myself as an older woman who lives alone, and it's all about how I am going to do what I have to do to be as strong as I can be and be confident that I can do what I need to do as an older person. [p. 62]”

“If I am not for myself, who is for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?”

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”

“I am astonished, disappointed, pleased with myself. I am distressed, depressed, rapturous. I am all these things at once, and cannot add up the sum. I am incapable of determining ultimate worth or worthlessness; I have no judgment about myself and my life. There is nothing I am quite sure about. I have no definite convictions - not about anything, really. I know only that I was born and exist, and it seems to me that I have been carried along. I exist on the foundation or something I do not know.”