“the abuser's desire to abuse is not created by the child - it is there before the child appears”

“Survivors are damaged to different degrees by their experiences. This does not depend on what happened physically. A Survivor who has been raped will not necessarily be more damaged than a Survivor...”

“I can't get myself to say what happened next. I cannot cope with even thinking about this let alone living with it.""It is so degrading and I try to forget, it hurts so much because she is my mothe...”

“I am disgusted that I was often taken into their bed and told to do things to both of them. The things a decent parent wouldn't think of. I didn't know that having sex with her or with him was wron...”

“Blame is the creed of the disempowered.”

“The most judgmental people are often those who complain most about being judged. The ones not complaining will look as though they're the ones doing the judging.”

“A child is not to blame for being immersed in a certain environment and handed down complexes”

“A statue stands in a shaded placeAn angel girl with an upturned faceA name is written on a polished rockA broken heart that the world forgot”

“If you are really doing all this for your kids, then why are you so mean to them?”

“A terrible sadness threatened to overwhelm me as I wondered how two people capable of such love for each other had eventually felt so little for the child they had produced between them.”

“A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.”

“As the new work fills my notebooks, I've come to realize that the characters in my stories were so real because I really did want to get close to people, I really did want to know them. It was just...”

“Loneliness clarifies. Here silence standsLike heat. Here leaves unnoticed thicken, Hidden weeds flower, neglected waters quicken, Luminously-peopled air ascends; And past the poppies bluish neutral...”