“You only confuse hope with power once in life.”

“In the argument over whether knowledge is power or ignorance is bliss, it seems I've always come down on the side of ignorance. And when that's the side you fall on, you don't realize it until it's...”

“You never hear widows voice the sentiment, but I could stave off companionship indefinitely. Sex, not so much.”

“There are so many things I dare not say I have quietly stopped being me.”

“You don't always get to know what happened, or why things happened a certain way, but it always, always, goes deeper than any one thing.”

“Alcohol was like a fun cousin I visited every once in a while but never planned a trip around.”

“One morning you wake up with more life behind you than in front of you, not being able to understand how its happened.”

“At a certain age almost all the questions a person asks him or herself are really just about one thing: how should you live your life?”

“Anyone who met him today would say, *Soldier. Fighter.* They would want him on their team. As a mother she was willing to engage in pride over fear and to admit the possibility that his sacrice was...”

“We accept the love we think we deserve.”

“All Earthquakes and Disasters are warnings theres too much corruption in the world ”

“Its only when youre at the bottom of the ladder that you ascend.”

“It seems to me that since I've had children, I've grown richer and deeper. They may have slowed down my writing for a while, but when I did write, I had more of a self to speak from.”

“It didn't matter that there was a war on our doorstep. She had things to do, places to be.”

“Stranger inside me, when you are born, I will give youa closed book and ask you never to read it, never rest, never forgive a man who wants to save you.”