“Now I felt like I was drifting, sucked down by an undertow, and too far out to swim back to the shore.”

“I felt like I was staring out across an ocean that I was going to have to swim from shore to shore before I could rest again.”

“One's character is set at an early age. The choices you make now will affect you for the rest of your life. I hate to see you swim out so far you can't swim back.”

“I start to feel like an empty canvas under the hands of Michelangelo. No! Like a swimmer who's gone out to far in the ocean being pulled back to shore by a fashion lifeguard.”

“Striving to meet my father's expectations is like climbing out of quicksand: the harder I try to get to the top, the more I'm sucked back down by his unrelenting criticism.”

“He felt his smile slide away, melt, fold over and down on itself like a tallow skin, like the stuff of a fantastic candle burning too long and now collapsing and now blown out.”