She wanted him to tell her that when you love someone so hard and so fierce, it was all right to do things that you knew were wrong.

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.

The bottom line in both cases is that people don't change; that no matter how charming you are and how fiercely you love, you cannot turn a person into something she's not.

How could you go about choosing something that would hold the half of your heart you had to bury?

You don't have to say I love you to say I love you," you said with a shrug. "All you have to do is say my name and I know." ..."Can't you hear it?" you said. "When you love someone, you say their name different. Like it's safe inside your mouth.

People have to experience things that terrify them. If they don't, how will they ever come to appreciate safety?

One person's trauma is another's loss of innocence.