In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it's wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.

Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend.

I equal parts loved him and could not stand him. I couldn't wake him to share in my distress.

David was catnip and kryptonite to me.

So now I have started living my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly.

Virginia Woolf wrote, "Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword." On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where all is correct. But on the other side of that sword, if you're crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, "all is confusion." Nothing follows a regular course. Her argument was that the crossing of the shadow of that sword may bring a more interesting existence to a woman, but you can bet it will be more perilous.

Take me someplace where we can be silent together.