“We all think we're different, but when it comes around, we end up needing the same things. Somebody to love us. Somebody to respect us.”

“Sometimes when things get hard, we tend to set our sights on what's hard, that difficult thing that keeps us upset, and we turn our back on our strengths. ”

“When you're young, you make mistakes. The big thing that's different now is that when I was a kid, you could survive your mistakes. We didn't have guns. Today, kids have access to guns. The same kids that would have been in trouble and gotten a stern talking-to are now going to jail for fifteen or twenty years. Instead of bloody noses there are bodies lying in the street with chalk outlines around them. The values are basically the same, but it's easier to mess up.”

“I know I'm tired of thinking about what I should have done yesterday. I know I'm just tired. If I knew what to do with my life, how to fix it up, I would have done it a long time ago. You can't dig that? You think I want to live like I'm somebody's throwaway?”

“Sometimes, when things look terrible...you just need to find the right move to turn the whole game around. When you find it you feel great.”

“I think that if we can't go back, then we should try even harder to go forward. And I do want to go forward, to a place where loving someone because they have a gentle smile and a friendly hello is as easy as it once was.”

“But in the end, we learn we can forgive most people. The cushion of mortality makes their wrongdoing seem less dark, and whatever roads they traveled seem less foolhardy.”