It's often said that a traumatic experience early in life marks a person forever, pulls her out of line, saying, "Stay there. Don't move.

The perishable nature of love is what gives love its profound importance in our lives. If it were endless, if it were on tap, love wouldn't hit us the way it does.

Added to their loveliness was a new mysterious suffering, perfectly silent, visible in the blue puffiness beneath their eyes or the way they would sometimes stop in mid-stride, look down, and shake their heads as though disagreeing with life.

Everyone struggles against despair, but it always wins in the end. It has to. It's the thing that lets us say goodbye.

Scars crossed her welded wrists.

No matter how long your've been at it, you always start from scratch.

There are some books that reached through the noise of life to grab you by the collar and speak only of the truest things.