“My father used to say there are two kinds of people: the noticers and the noticed”

“The most successful people in the most impossible situations are the ones that are sure they're gonna get out of it, and they go on thinking that, even if they die trying.”

“Regrets serve their purpose. You'll see.”

“You're so dehydrated I can hear you blink.”

“Resilience, thy name is Devine.”

“I finally know the difference between pleasing and loving, obeying and respecting. It has taken me so many years to be okay with being different, and with being this alive, this intense. (xxvi)”

“Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.”

“Birthdays could be such a bummer when you were older than the country you lived in.”

“Children betrayed their parents by becoming their own people.”

“But marrying within one's own family can get monotonous. One has heard all the same family stories, knows all the jokes and all the same recipes. No novelty.”

“She took comfort in the familiarity of his smell, knowing that if she lost all her possessions and her home, at least she would have her family.”

“How little our careers express what lies in us, and yet how much time they take up. It's sad, really.”

“Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.”

“What a sad story, I thought for so long. Not that I now think it was happy. But I think it is true, and thus the question of whether it is sad or happy has no meaning whatever.”