Faith is belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch. Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark.

creative people always suffer from depression because we're so super sensitive and special?

I've been screwed and sued and tattooed, and I'm still standin' here in front of you.

I am determined to make the most of this life that I have, damn it - it's that kind of stubbornness I think we all need more of.

The Silly Putty-like malleability of the institution [marriage], in fact, is the only reason we still have the thing at all. Very few people... would accept marriage on it's thirteenth-century terms. Marriage survives, in other words, precisely because it evolves. (Though I suppose this would not be a very persuasive argument to those who probably also don't believe in evolution).

We were taught to be dependable, responsible, the top of our classes at school, the most organized and efficient babysitters in town, the very miniature models of our hardworking farmer/nurse mother, a pair of junior Swiss Army knives, born to multitask.

This is what intimacy does to us over time. That's what a long marriage can do: It causes us to inherit and trade each other's stories. (p.237)