Are you one of those people who says on a first date, 'I'm really not in a hurry to meet somebody, I figure if it happens, it happens'? Because those are the most desperate people of all. I'm just saying this so that if you are this person, you aren't hiding it from anybody. There is no shame in being hungry for another person. There is no shame in wanting very much to share your life with somebody.

Nothing made sense to me anymore. I knew I was young, I knew I was small. But I was worried that I might already be ruined.

I hate feelings. Why does sobriety have to come with feelings?

The line between normal and crazy seemed impossibly thin. A person would have to be an expert tightrope walker in order not to fall.

Time moves only forward, never back. We look forward to a moment and then it arrives and an instant later it is gone. Like something on the surface of a river that we reached for but did not touch in time and it carried on, away. You cannot be a prisoner of your past against your will. Because you can only live in the past inside your mind.

Never work with children, puppies or bulimics.

Thanksgiving was nothing more than a pilgrim-created obstacle in the way of Christmas; a dead bird in the street that forced a brief detour.