No one expected you to amount to much," she told me. "Lori was the smart one, Maureen the pretty one, and Brian the brave one. You never had much going for you except that you always worked hard.

What I do know is that wondering why you survived don't help you survive.

[Optimism] acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

When someone's wounded, the first order of business is to stop the bleeding. You can figure out later how best to help them heal.

Since Mom wasn't exactly the most useful person in the world, one lesson I learned at an early age was how to get things done, and this was a source of both amazement and concern for Mom, who considered my behavior unladylike but also counted on me. "I never knew a girl to have such gumption," she'd say. "But I'm not too sure it's a good thing.

....he said it was interesting. He used the word 'textured'. He said 'smooth' is boring but 'textured' was interesting, and the scar meant that I was stronger than whatever had tried to hurt me.

But no matter how much planning you do, one tiny miscalculation, one moment of distraction, can end it all in an instant.