“There is no shame in scars, Ismae.”

“A scar is never ugly. We must see all scars as beauty. A scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, 'I survived.”

“A scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. A scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.”

“Scars are not injuries, Tanner Sack. A scar is a healing. After injury, a scar is what makes you whole.”

“All humans at some time experience injustice, assault, disqualification, invasion and betrayal. No person is completely shielded. We need not trace our family trees very far back or study for long what life was like for our forbears to uncover humanity's abusiveness. The inherited scars of our multigenerational families exist in our family systems as we know them today. The abuse of the past often exists as the shame of today, and the shame is perpetuated through our patterns of interaction.”

“That was the dirty secret associated with her past. Not that she'd been abused but that somehow she felt that she deserved it because she'd let it happen. Even now, it shamed her, and there were times when she felt hideously ugly, as though the scars that had been left behind were visible to everyone.”