“Don't be quick to believe the bad things you hear about good people. Everyone has a story left untold.”

“Sometimes it's more generous to take than give, he said. "How?" Caroline asked. "To let the other person give you what he has to offer. If you're always the one giving, you never have to feel disappointed, because you don't expect anything in return. But it's miserly in its own way. Because you never leave yourself open or give the other person a chance.”

“Instead, what I was beginning to understand was that however things unfolded from here on, whatever the next chapter was, my life could never be the sum of one circumstance. It would be determined, as it had always been, by my willingness to put one foot in front of the other, moving forward, come what may.”

“You're leaving, "she said, rising to her feet. "I knew it was coming." "How?" "I'm your mother. You're the breath of my lungs and the beat of my heart. I know you very well.”

“Literature is a source of pleasure, he said, it is one of the rare inexhaustible joys in life, but it's not only that. It must not be disassociated from reality. Everything is there. That is why I never use the word fiction. Every subtlety in life is material for a book. He insisted on the fact. Have you noticed, he'd say, that I'm talking about novels? Novels don't contain only exceptional situations, life or death choices, or major ordeals; there are also everyday difficulties, temptations, ordinary disappointments; and, in response, every human attitude, every type of behavior, from the finest to the most wretched. There are books where, as you read, you wonder: What would I have done? It's a question you have to ask yourself. Listen carefully: it is a way to learn to live. There are grown-ups who would say no, that literature is not life, that novels teach you nothing. They are wrong. Literature performs, instructs, it prepares you for life.”

“Crazy? try ceiling-licking, rabies-frothing, dish-ran-away-with-the-spoon-in-fucking-sane." --Thanatos”

“If you don't forgive those who have hurt you, you give them power of you. When you forgive you are in control of yourself and emotions.”

“I know about forgiving people and loving them anyway, even after they hurt you.”