“And we're all good, everything is forgiven between Beethoven and me because this is the part of me that hasn't changed. In this monent I'm not defined by the other things, the things that happened ...”

“[Referring to rape] It already is bigger than everything else. It lives in front of me, behind me, next to me, inside me every single day. My schedule is dictated by it, my habits by it, my music b...”

“here she is, all mine, trying her best to give me all she can. How could I ever hurt her? But I didnt understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can...”

“Any happiness, no matter how brief, seemed better than the long, simmering torture of waking up day after day, knowing I could never have him.”

“Everyone always wants to know how you can tell when it's true love, and the answer is this: when the pain doesn't fade and the scars don't heal, and it's too damned late.”

“No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories.”

“Do you know what pain is, Cammie? Its thebodys physical response to imminent harm.It is the minds way of telling us to move ourhand off the stove or let go of the brokenglass.”

“A sad lesson that was mine to learn is that you can't lose what was never truly yours. Nor can you hold to things that simply do not wish to be held.”

“She shook off the self-recrimination. What-ifs and could-have-beens were not the way to move forward. She knew that from experience.”

“When your bright future, becomes a dull regret of the past, take a deep breath and move on.”

“Sooner or later we've all got to let go of our past.”