“You surround yourself with your pain or you avoid it and let it find you when you are trying to do other things”

“Honesty was a tough customer... Once you started allowing yourself some honesty, it couldn't easily be contained or limited to one part of your life. It was like poison ivy or a bossy houseguest. O...”

“Healing wasnt always the best thing. Sometimes a hole was better left open. Sometimes it healed too thick and too well and left separate pieces fused and incompetent. And it was harder to reopen af...”

“It was hard to feel the right emotions at the right times. They didnt come at all when you set a place for them, and they sacked when you werent ready, when you were just innocently flossing your t...”

“His distress and pleasure mixed and married, giving birth to several anxious children.”

“Alice suspected Paul couldnt really picture his father, just like she couldnt picture Paul when he was away. Maybe that was the case with people you wanted more than was good for you.”

“God, he suddenly understood, was love in its purest form, and in these last months with his children, he had felt His touch as surely as he had heard the music spilling from Ronnie's hands.”

“No matter how many times she was told that she was loved, there was no recognition that the proof was in the abandonment.”

“Love her but leave her wild.”