My parents had very high expectations. They expected me to get straight A's from the time I was in kindergarten.

When you lose your face..., it is like dropping your necklace down a well. The only way you can get it back is to fall in after it.

Whenever my mother talks to me, she begins the conversation as if we were already in the middle of an argument.

It was a distorted form of inverse logic: If hopes never come true, then hope for what you don't want.

There's no hope. There's no reason to keep trying. Because you must. This is not hope. Not reason. This is your fate. This is your life, what you must do.

Seeing her this last time, I threw myself on her body. And she opened her eyes slowly. I was not scared. I knew she could see me and what she had finally done. So i shut her eyes with my fingers and told her with my heart: I cah see the truth, too. I am strong, too.

I was punched breathless by the strongest emotions I have ever felt and they are now stored in my intuition as a writer.