I wondered about her chicken-and-egg relationship with Dad. Which came first? Her helplessness or his controlling?

That's exactly why nature always trumps gardens. Gardens are just reality pruned of chaos. What doesn't work you rip out.

Let the glossy spreads have their heart-stopping, head-turning kind of beauty. Give me the heart-filling beauty instead. Jolie laide, that's what I would choose. Flawed, we're truly interesting, truly memorable, and yes, truly beautiful.

There must be a few times in life when you stand at a precipice of a decision. When you know there will forever be a Before and an After...I knew there would be no turning back if I designated this moment as my own Prime Meridian from which everything else would be measured.

Teachers wondered why I didn't speak up more in class. Why would I when I knew how precarious words could be, how betraying they were, how vulnerable they made you?

You can see beauty in everything, except for yourself.

Inertia is so easy—don't fix what's not broken. Leave well enough alone. So we end up accepting what is broken, mistaking complaining for action, procrastinating for deliberation.