This is what it always comes down to, I realized. There are the ones who believe, and the ones who don't, and caught in the space between them are guns.

And that was the greatest heartbreak of all- no matter how spectacular we want our children to be, no matter how perfect we pretend they are, they are bound to disappoint. As it turns out, kids are more like us than we think: damaged, through and through.

You don't love someone because they're perfect," she says. "You love them in spite of the fact that they're not." I don't know how to respond to that; it's like being told after thirty-five years that the sky, which I've seen as a brilliant blue, is in fact rather green.

When you want something bad, you'll tell yourself a thousand lies.

It felt like I'd been living underground, and for a moment, I'd been given this glimpse of the sky. Once you've seen that, how can you go back where you came from?

I have always envied people who believe strongly in religion, people who could face a tragedy by praying and know that it would be all right. As unscientific as it seems, well, it would be nice to lay the responsibilities and pain on someone else's larger shoulders.

She felt a cage coming down around her; too late she realized that he had her trapped by the heart. And like any unwilling animal that was well and truly caught, she could escape only by leaving a piece of herself behind.