“I was sure that if I could just scale this fortress I would reach a height with a sunny blue sky and fresh air. I would stand there and experience myself as redeemable rather than ruined. I had no ...”

“Before that experience, I had often felt the kind of alone that comes from the suspicion that you are not only genetically different from those around you, but different in your very soul...[then] ...”

“Like people touch the feet of Jesus on the Pieta and hope for a blessing, I would touch the feet of the dancer and hope for grace.”

“If you expect great things of yourself and demand little of others, youll keep resentment far away.”

“There were two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations”

“One recipe for happiness is to have to sense of entitlement.' To this she added a star and noted at the bottom of the page: 'This is not a lesson I have ever been in a position to learn.”