Soon, he would become an adult. And when he did, there would be not going back because adulthood was akin to what his father had once said about being a war hero: one you became one, you died one.

Nothing good came free. Even love. You paid for all things. And if you were poor, suffering was your currency.

i want to give up my bearings, slip out of who i am, shed everything, the way a snake discards old skin.

you say you have no courage, but i see it in you. what you did, the burden you agreed to shoulder, took courage. for that, i honor you.

James Parkinson. George Huntington. Robert Graves. John Down. Now this Lou Gehrig fellow of mine. How did men come to monopolize disease names too?

these random unkind moment that catch you wen you least expect them.

He scarcely knew who was battling whom, who was winning, who was losing, as though he hoped that by doggedly ignoring the war it would return the favor

In my experience, men who understand women seem to rarely want to have anything to do with them.

He used to wonder how such a frail little body could house so much joy, so much goodness. It couldn't. It spilled out of her, came pouring out her eyes.

I would have told them that he lived a life lacking in purpose or direction. Like those aimless rides I took him on. A life lived from the backseat, observed as it blurred by. An indifferent life.

A spectacularly foolish and baseless faith, against enormous odds, that a world you do not control will not take from you the one thing you cannot bare to lose.

Freedom is that you harness from being a slave to the one you love.

Grace is a good fortune.

The way he looked me up and down made a part of me burn with desire. Fire and electricity. Flames and sparks. Needing and wanting. Tempting temptation.

Fermentation may have been a better invention than fire.

South Sudan is one of the most hard-put places in the world.

I think that, for sure, we as women should try and realize that it's more about having someone to share.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is one of the greatest films of all time.

It's not like I've ever been the popular pretty girl at school or anything. I was always such a weirdo.

Growing up at my grandmother's table, she always had rice. She might do something as exotic as potatoes or spaghetti, but there was still always rice, just in case you needed a little rice fix.

I am not a monster, I am just a man.