“I guess it could be worse. My name could be Tlaquepaque, or Irkutsk, or Pyongyang. Or, you know, Pittsburgh. Sometimes I flip through the atlas just to remind myself of all the names that would be worse than mine.”

“In our moments of pain and trial, I guess we would shudder to think it could be worse, but without the atonement it not only could be worse, it would be worse.”

“But...as bad as it was, I learned something about myself. That I could go through something like that and survive. I mean, I know it could have been worse--a lot worse-- but for me, it was all I could have handled at the time. And I learned from it.”

“I would know of myself through the witnessing and naming of others. As Jesus in the Gospels is only seen and spoken of and recorded by others. I would know my existence and the value of that existence through others' eyes, which I believed I could trust as I could not trust my own.”

“Missing you is worse than Pittsburgh.”

“Words were sometimes like ammo. They could strike you with fear worse than an arrow. And worse was sometimes knowing ahead a time what the words were.”