...Some people hurt so much they can't take what they need, even when someone wants to give it to them. (106)

What was it about not knowing a person that allowed you to wonder whether she might be the answer to all your problems?

Most children would rather preserve the fantasy of a loving connection with their fathers and mothers, at all costs, even if it costs them their self-esteem. When you're three or seven years old, it's less frightening to think of yourself as an unlovable, disappointing screwup than to recognize the fact that you're living with a monster.

Relationships are never chance events.

We are, all of us, crippled and twisted. Most of us strive desperately to keep our grotesqueries out of sight and mind. Our suffering is transformed by an alchemy of the soul into addiction, ulcers, strokes, hatred, even war.

I think men should be able to veto women's abortions if they're willing to care for the child after it's born.

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