There's the parent you want and the parent you have.

Sasha's green eyes were right up against yours, the lashes interlocking. In Naples, she said, there were kids who were just lost. You knew they were never going to get back to what they'd been, or have a normal life. And then there were other ones who you thought, maybe they will....You opened your eyes, which you hadn't realized were shut again. what I'm saying is, We're the survivors, Sasha said....Not everyone is. But we are. Okay?

At first, when a child meets something that scares him, the fear grows, like a wave. But when he goes into the water and swims - gets used to the water - the wave grows small. If we pull the child away when the wave is high, he never sees that, never learns how to swim and remains afraid. If he gets a chance to feel strong, in control, that's called coping. When he copes, he feels better.

There is something powerful in the whispering of obscenities, about those in power. There's something delightful about it, something naughty, secretive, forbidden, thrilling. It's like a spell, of sorts. It deflates them, reduces them to the common denominator where they can be dealt with.

She had worn the Morgenstern ring since Jace had left it for her, and sometimes she wondered why. Did she really want to be reminded of Valentine? And yet, at the same time, was it ever right to forget?You couldn't erase everything that caused you pain with its recollection. She didn't want to forget Max or Madeleine, or Hodge, or the Inquisitor, or even Sebastian. Every moment was valuable; even the bad ones.

Give me loveGive me loveGive me peace on earthGive me lightGive me lifeKeep me free from birthGive me hopeHelp me cope, with this heavy loadTrying to, touch and reach you with,heart and soul

He wants me to tell him about the front; he is curious in a way that I find stupid and distressing; I no longer have any real contact with him. There is nothing he likes more than just hearing about it. I realize he does not know that a man cannot talk of such things; I would do it willingly, but it is too dangerous for me to put these things into words. I am afraid they might then become gigantic and I be no longer able to master them. What would become of us if everything that happens out there were quite clear to us?

She said once that time is nothing to me but a series of bookmarks that I use to jump back and forth through the text of my life, returning again and again to the events that mark me in the eyes of my more astute colleagues, as bearing all the characteristics of the classic melancholic.

I don't forgive him, I said.Hell, no, you don't. And why should you? So he can feel better? Get on with his life? And what's he done to help you get on with yours?

When it comes to death, we know that laughter and tears are pretty much the same thing.

All the dead bolts, pulled shades and hidden knives in the world couldn't protect you from the truth.

Facing it, always facing it, that's the way to get through. Face it.

It's funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools - friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty - and said 'do the best you can with these, they will have to do'. And mostly, against all odds, they do.

Sometimes I just think depression's one way of coping with the world. Like, some people get drunk, some people do drugs, some people get depressed. Because there's so much stuff out there that you have to do something to deal with it.

She liked to see people manage, somehow.