Why do you think you are missing something you never had?

When you already believe something, how can you suddenly stop? When you are a loyal friend, how can you no longer be one?

Writing what you wished was the most dangerous form of wishful thinking.

Whenever I'm with my mother, I feel as though I have to spend the whole time avoiding land mines.

She would be quiet at first. Then she would say a word about something small, something she had noticed, and then another word, and another, each one flung out like a little piece of sand, one from this direction, another form behind, more and more, until his looks, his character, his soul would have eroded away . . . I was afraid that some unseen speck of truth would fly into my eye, blur what I was seeing and transform him from the divine man I thought he was into someone quite mundane, mortally wounded with tiresome habits and irritating imperfections.

While it is good to speak well, it is better to speak the truth.

That was how dishonesty and betrayal started, not in big lies but in small secrets.