“I don’t write this letter to put bitterness into your heart, but to pluck it out of mine. For my own sake I must forgive you.”

“Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;
My silent heart, lie still and break:
Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed
For a dream's sake.”

“I forgive you.
I don't condone or say that what you did to me was alright…
it was not.
I will never forget.
But I forgive you
for the sake of myself…so I may truly be Free.
I love Me.
Although it shall never be the same…
I can find it in my heart to
love you too.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for a writer to psychoanalyze herself or try to explain why she writes what she writes—it’s a reductive way of looking at oneself and one’s work. Readers really participate in the writing of a book. As a writer I’m giving the reader signs to help create the story with me. The reader is bringing his or her own memories, intelligence, preconceptions, prejudices, likes, dislikes. So the characters in your copy of the book are going to look and sound different than in mine. I have my own ideas, but once the book is out there it’s not really mine anymore, and my own idea isn’t any more valid than yours. And then I begin the long process of disengaging.”

“If you have made it through this publication and you still don't have peace with God, then your blood will be upon your own head. On Judgement Day, I will be free from your blood. I have poured out my heart to you. I have reasoned with you. I have pleaded with you - and you will have no one to blame but yourself for refusing to receive God's forgiveness.”

“To err is human, to forgive divine. (Acheron)
I don’t ask for your forgiveness. I don’t deserve it. I only ask for a chance to show you now that I’m not the fool I was once. (Styxx)”

“They did not put much value on my capacities, which were admittedly few, but genuine. I read everything, I wrote constantly, and I had boyfriends by the barrelful. “Why don’t you do the assigned reading?” they’d ask. “Why don’t you write your papers instead of whatever you’re writing—what is that, a short story?” “Why don’t you expend as much energy on your schoolwork as you do on your boyfriends?” By my senior year I didn’t even bother with excuses, let alone explanations. “Where is your term paper?” asked my history teacher. “I didn’t write it. I have nothing to say on that topic.” “You could have picked another topic.””

“There are things that you can't do - like writing letters to a part of yourself. To your feet or hair. Or heart.”

“And there, in that phrase, the bitterness leaks again out of my pen. What a dull lifeless quality this bitterness is. If I could I would write with love, but if I could write with love I would be another man; I would never have lost love.”

“He put his hand over mine, the one with the dead cigarette crumbled in it, and gave me a wonderful smile. "Easy, child, easy. I’m only teasing you. Don’t think I disapprove for Christ’s sake. Live it up, I say. Don’t say no to life, Gorce, you’re only young once.””