“Being tender and open is beautiful. As a woman, I feel continually shhh’ed. Too sensitive. Too mushy. Too wishy washy. Blah blah. Don’t let someone steal your tenderness. Don’t allow the coldness and fear of others to tarnish your perfectly vulnerable beating heart. Nothing is more powerful than allowing yourself to truly be affected by things.”

“In my prayers, I want to say: Lord, don’t be far from me, and also don’t come too close. Let me contemplate the stars on the texture of your cloth, but don’t unveil your face to me. Allow me to hear the rivers that you send running, but Lord! Lord! Don’t allow me hearing your voice”

“Blah, blah, blah, regret to inform you that DI Gray has tendered his resignation; blah, blah, blah; opportunity to reward performance; blah, blah, blah; suggestions by next Wednesday.McPherson had scribbled, "BEATTIE?" in the margin in red biro.Idiot.Logan stuck the memo back in the drawer. Detective Sergeant Beattie couldn't arrest his own backside with three patrol cars and a search warrant.”

“Whenever you feel a negative emotion be alone in a room and just sit down with it and feel. Don't judge it, criticize it, intellectualize it, explain it away. Allow yourself to feel the pain. It's okay. Accompany it - breathe into it - and after a while, you'll feel the anger or fear or sadness lose it's urgency and power. Allow God to tenderly embrace you in your pain. And then, at the right time, you can let go.”

“Take any emotion—love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I’m going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions—if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them—you can never get to being detached, you’re too busy being afraid. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.”

“I didn't want to tell you I'd been scared, much less why. I guess that was stupid.""It was.""Aren't you supposed to say something like 'no, it wasn't. Blah, blah, support, stroke, let me get you some chocolate'?""You haven't red the marriage handbook's footnotes. It's another woman who does that sort of thing. I believe I'm allowed to be more blunt, then ask if you'd like a quick shag.""Shag yourself”