A carpet of despair which lay underneath the levels of fury.

You can call it innocence, or you can call it gullibility, but Celia made the most common mistake of the good-hearted: she assumed that everyone else was just like her.

In a country that doesn't discriminate between fame and infamy, the latter presents itself as plainly more achievable.

Time itself made all things rare.

Funny how the nature of a normal day is the first memory to fade.

Not that happiness is dull. Only that it doesn't tell well. And of our consuming diversions as we age is to recite, not only to others but to ourselves, our own story.

...whenever a woman describes a man as sweet, the dalliance is doomed.

Though surely to avoid attachments for fear of loss is to avoid life.

I thought at the time that I couldn't be horrified anymore, or wounded. I suppose that's a common conceit, that you've already been so damaged that damage itself, in its totality, makes you safe.

I was mortified by the prospect of becoming hopelessly trapped in someone else's story.

My mind is huge with little stories that I never told you.

Always do your best to be loving and kind to others.

These secrets are not secrets per se but are truths hidden from public view. I had to write this book. There had to be a reason I survived to tell this story.

I am protective of the gentle slope of stomach bulging like an early pregnancy, at my waist. I've earned its existence with everything I've been forced to swallow.

Just living is not enough... one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.

What marks the artist is his power to shape the material of pain we all have.

Four elements make up the climate of war: danger, exertion, uncertainty and chance.

People who love themselves, don't hurt other people. The more we hate ourselves, the more we want others to suffer.

Try to live so that you can always tell the truth.

I believe you select a president who best represents what you think are the values that God wants us to have.

It will probably take several more generations before the female body can be considered a stand-in for the human body.