Didn't people call New Year's the loneliest night on the calender? She took comfort in knowing somewhere on the planet, someone might be as miserable as she was.

Things that happen before you are born still affect you and people who come before your time affect you as well.

Tension of opposites.

This is part of what a family is about, not just love. It's knowing that your family will be there watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame. Not work.

Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them - a mother's approval, a father's nod - are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.

People often belittle the place where they were born.

I know I cannot undo this. None of us can undo what we’ve done, or relive a life already recorded.