The human organism has only so much energy at its disposal. If you divert a great deal of it into any one channel, you can expect the others to collapse or atrophy. If you squander your vital energies on your emotional life, as you have been doing, plan to be physically and mentally bankrupt, as it were.

If this was adulthood the only improvement she could detect in her situation was that she could now eat dessert without eating her vegetables.

Dying was apparently a weaning process; all the attachments to familiar people and objects have to be undone.

I wrote for twelve years and collected 250 rejection slips before getting any fiction published, so I guess outside reinforcement isn't all that important to me.

The strength you've insisted on assigning to others is actually within yourself.

Any mother could perform the jobs of several air-traffic controllers with ease.

Depression was a very active state really. Even if you appeared to an observer to be immobilized, your mind was in a frenzy of paralysis. You were unable to function, but were actively despising yourself for it.