It seemed to me the way it must feel to people who cut themselves on purpose. Not pretty, but clean. Not good, but void of regret. I was trying to heal. Trying to get the bad out of my system so I could be good again. To cure me of myself.

I had to go on without my mother, even though I was suffering terribly, grieving her. My whole life sort of ended when my mom died. I had to remake it again and be a new person in the world without my mom. It was a very primal rebirth, that time after my mom died.

...the ultimate dwindling resource in the human arrangement isn’t cheap oil or potable water or even common sense, but mercy.

My mother's last word to me clanks inside me like an iron bell that someone beats at dinnertime: love, love, love, love, love.

I’m a free spirit who never had the balls to be free.

Run as far as you can in the direction of your best and happiest dreams across the bridge that was built by your own desire to heal.

In your twenties you're becoming who you're going to be and so you might as well not be an asshole.