“I’m feeling really hopeful about it, like maybe I actually have a chance to get better. To be happy. It’s funny, I just realized that my whole life, the whole time I’ve been trying to be perfect, I never once considered happiness as part of the equation. I guess it seemed so impossible I couldn’t even let myself fantasize about it. But now, I don’t know, things feel different somehow. Like impossible things might not be so impossible.”

“I don't know if anyone can ever really explain why they believe in someone. But I do. I believe in you. I hope that's worth something.”

“...and I know -I just know- you can remind me what it feels like to have someone look at me and love me with wanting me to be something else.”

“Phones are only good for ordering pizza and telling someone you're running late”

“Everyone's always making fun of him and calling him crazy behind his back, but I can kind of understand how someone would end up that way. I mean, if no one ever pays attention to you telling the truth, then it probably makes sense to try lying for a change.”

“That's what dreams are really like, you know? They're not full of melting clocks or floating roses or people made out of rocks. Most of the time, dreams look just like the normal world. It's your feelings that tell you something's off. Not your mind, not your intellect, not something as obvious as that. The only part of you that really knows what's going on is the part of you that's most a mystery. If that's not Surrealism, I don't know what is.”

“How can she stand up there so tall as she’s telling us how her mother beat her and her father molested her when she was a little girl? How is it possible for her to look so proud? How is she not being consumed by shame? She should be disintegrating before our eyes. She should be struck by lightning, and God’s big, angry, booming voice should be shaking the room with “How dare you? I told you never to tell.” But that’s not her God, she says. Her God is loving and kind and wants what’s best for her. Her God loves peace and serenity and forgiveness. Her God doesn’t make her keep secrets. I thought I knew God all my life, but maybe it was some other guy the whole time. I want this God. I want Val’s God. I want a God who doesn’t make me jump through hoops and hate myself to earn his love.”

“This thing that’s always been inside and hidden deep is getting bigger and stronger and threatening to show itself, and I want to stop it but I also don’t, and I don’t know if I’m ready, but I think maybe I want what’s inside turned outside, maybe I want everything out in the open, all my secrets laid out for everyone to see. I wonder what that would look like. I wonder what kind of mess it would make. I wonder if you can ever really be ready for the part of you that you’ve been hiding your whole life to finally come out.”

“They said the doctors could tell from the scars.""Stop.""Scars can tell you how old the wound is.""Stop.""When I stopped going to school, they came and found me. They found me in the closet.""Sarah.”

“I said just let me try one more time and she said, "THAT'S ENOUGH, ISABEL," again, and she could just say it over and over and it would never get through my thick skull because I'm always wanting and wanting because nothing is ever enough you are never enough I am never enough I am never enough I AM NEVER ENOUGH.”

“I wonder if anybody else feels this way, if anyone in here is as scared as I am. Are they as sad and angry and confused and ashamed? Is that even possible? Is it even possible for one building to hold all that pain?”