“You need systems. You need checklists. You need … things in place to keep people from making mistakes. Left to their own devices, people will screw up on a regular basis.”

“You need to keep people close. You need to give them access to your heart.”

“To deal with things knowledge of things is needed. To deal with
people, you need insight, sympathy. To deal with yourself, you need
nothing. Be what you are--conscious being--and don't stray away from
yourself.”

“I feel ashamed now that I tried to take my life. It is such a precious thing. I had no one to talk me out of my despair and that was a mistake. You need to keep people close. You need to give them access to your heart.”

“The world is crazy. You need a license to drive a car and go fishing. You don't need a license to start a family. Two people have sex and BAM! Perfectly innocent kid is born whose life will be screwed up by her parents forever.”

“We all screw up. Everyone makes mistakes. That’s what she did. It was bad judgment, that’s all. You don’t cut off the people you love for mistakes like that.”

“If you rely exclusively on the advice of others, you may make terrible mistakes. Your heart knows what you need. Other people have other agendas.”

“No matter what you have been told by people who make your needs wrong because they don’t want to meet those needs, you cannot un-need what you need.”

“You didn't need a college degree to become one of the people who knew what was really going on. If you paid attention, you could pick things up on your own.”

“[Everyone needs] a woman who'll listen, take your side, tell the truth - or not, as you need it. A woman you can count on, no matter what, and who'll love you no matter how much you screw up.”