"Life humbles the rich by giving them problems that money can’t resolve, or, dissolve. Life enslaves the poor by giving them problems that money can resolve, or, dissolve."

"Etta saw the way Sophia took a deep breathe, set her shoulders back, and moved with practiced grace on her way out — and she understood something about the other girl, truly understood for the first time. Sophia wanted it, when she was only ever sent out."

"What do we do after things fall apart? Do we run to the familiar once again? Do we attempt to numb the pain with distractions? What do we do after things fall apart?"

"What’s it like being a writer? Mostly it’s like being a child surrounded by adults. My friends have grown-up careers. They balance spreadsheets, analyze data, negotiate deals. They build things, heal patients, teach children. Meanwhile, I’m over here saying “Let’s pretend."

"Somehow however just knowing that I could fully expect unhappiness to return – if not predictably then nevertheless reliably – was strangely liberating. The point was that even chaos had a structure a beginning and eventually an end. It was possible to live through it. I’d been doing as much for twenty years."

"I used to sleep on the floor next to the bed, because I believed that I didn't even deserve a bed to sleep in. And then, one morning, a cockroach crawled onto my leg. I looked at it, and suddenly I awoke from a kind of hypnotic trance in which I had been all my life."

"Look around you. Everything changes. Everything on this earth is in a continuous state of evolving, refining, improving, adapting, enhancing…changing. You were not put on this earth to remain stagnant."