When you say, "I need more confidence," what you're really saying is, "I need those people over there to approve of me." That is the desire to control other people and what they think. The first person who figures out how to do this owns the world.

Other people sound flat to my ear; their words just hang in the air. But when my mother says something, the ends curl.

and she's a nurse. do you know how hard nursing school is? it's like medical school. so she's obviously smart.

I did not consider him to be any kind of a genius. I considered him deeply lacking in the area that mattered most in life. Star quality.

I felt deeply tricked. Stunned. And furious. I also felt my default emotion: numbness.

I'm not going to waste my energy looking into the eyes of someone like the guy who blew my legs off trying to find a way to forgive him for doing something that horrible when there are way more productive ways I could be spending my life. You've got to focus on moving on.

The truth is that nobody is owed an apology for anything. Apologies are lovely when they happen. But they change nothing. They do not reverse actions or correct damage. They are merely nice to hear.