Animals don't think in terms of victims and villains, or good and bad, or evil, or shame.

Everybody’s got rights. A man tied to a bed got rights. A man down in a dungeon got rights. A little screaming baby got rights. Yeah, you got rights. What you don’t got is power.

I don't think that any family has a function. I just think that a family is. It just exists.

We hit and we kept on hitting; we were allowed to be what we were, frightened and vengeful — little animals, clawing at what we needed.

Animals don't think in terms of victims and villains, or good and bad, or evil, or shame.

As you become an adult, shame gets introduced and reintroduced constantly to you. So where something that, to a child, just is what it is - you know, your father's violent but he loves you and that's just the way it is - later on you realize that this is like different, shameful, blah blah blah.

I totally bristle against words like "dysfunction" or "abuse."