Patience is a virtue, but there comes a moment when you must stop being patient and take the day by the throat and shake it. If it fights back; fine. I'd rather end up bloody at the end of the day, then unhurt with no progress made, no knowledge gained. I'd rather have a no, then nothing. I'd forgotten that about myself.

You cannot die of grief, though it feels as if you can. A heart does not actually break, though sometimes your chest aches as if it is breaking. Grief dims with time. It is the way of things. There comes a day when you smile again, and you feel like a traitor. How dare I feel happy. How dare I be glad in a world where my father is no more. And then you cry fresh tears, because you do not miss him as much as you once did, and giving up your grief is another kind of death.

If you keep a gun in your purse, you get killed, because no woman can find anything in her purse in under twelve minutes. It's a rule.

I talk to myself everyone once in a while. Give myself very good advice. Sometimes I even take it.

I knew from the moment I heard you, the moment I saw the gun and realized that this lovely, petit woman was the executioner, that you would never die waiting for me to save you - that you would save yourself.

a pink taffeta evening gown. It looked like it had run away from a junior high prom... The dress looked like a petunia on steroids to me.

Love is not about owning someone, but about loving them.