I figured anybody who talked about church as much as she did was using it a little like cocaine anyhow.

For a psychiatrist to be any good, he has to be willing to corner you, close off the easy exits, even when it hurts. It's supposed to. (46)

There's no original evil left in the world. Everyone's just recycling pain. (257)

...the horrific fact that our lives and those of the people we love are impermanent and exquisitely fragile, that any of us can cease to exist without warning, that loving anyone, anywhere, at any time, leaves you infinitely vulnerable at every single moment. (20)

Plenty of people who survive tragedies end up ambivalent about danger--frightened by it, yet strangely drawn to it.

Human empathy, while not found on any chart of human anatomy, is the reason we instinctively hurt for our children... it is the reason that one human being's intensely personal tests and triumphs can be harnessed to the good of countless others.

People blush when one of their core truths is revealed.