What if I forgave myself? I thought. What if I forgave myself even though I'd done something I shouldn't have? What if I was a liar and a cheat and there was no excuse for what I'd done other than because it was what I wanted and needed to do? What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?

I was trying to find a new home in the world.

Believe in the integrity and value of the jagged path. We don't always do the right thing on our way to rightness.

I am, as they say, the classic starving artist.

Love is our essential nutrient. Without it, life has little meaning. It's the best thing we have to give and the most valuable thing we receive. It's worthy of all the hullabaloo.

There is a path toward the light. The one that goes blink, blink, blink inside your chest when you know what you're doing is right. Listen to it. Trust it. Let it make you stronger than you are.

He was the most ordinary man in all the world, and yet in her memory he'd become luminous, like the prince in a fairy tale.