And for all those years, we never talked about the disaster at the recital or my terrible accusations afterward at the piano bench. All that remained unchecked, like a betrayal that was now unbreakable. So I never found a way to ask her why she had hoped something so large that failure was inevitable. And even worse, I never asked her what frightened me the most: Why had she given up hope?

Chance is the first step you take, luck is what comes afterward.

How can you blame a person for his fears and weaknesses unless you have felt the same and done differently?

I read a book a day when I was a kid. My family was not literary; we did not have any books in the house.

Now I was a tiger that neither pounced nor lay waiting between the trees. I became an unseen spirit.

Her education only made her unhappy thinking about it - that no matter how much she changed her life, she could not change the world that surrounded her.

And I remember wondering why it was that eating something good could make me feel so terrible, while vomiting something terrible could make me feel so good.