Quotes from Lisa Unger

The nanny you let into your home seduces your husband, sets fire to your life. And all because you wanted to work and be a mother.

I see all the kids—the popular ones, the brains, the jocks, the punks, the burnouts. They are not who they will become. This moment, teenage life, it feels like the whole universe, but it's only a millisecond.

She could push inside or walk away. She could force a conversation, which might turn into a fight. Or just let him come to her when he was ready. She hesitated a moment, conflicted. Then she opted for the latter, moving quietly down the stairs, feeling that strange loneliness again. Uselessness, she thought, was the permanent condition of parenthood.

Maybe you're still friends with people even after they hurt you, even if they keep hurting you. Because there's something there. Something true and deep that stays even when it aches.

Real life is what happens between those posts. And you only know the version people show you on Instagram. It's a fiction. And I guarantee every single one of those perfect people you see out there is feeling as lost and insecure as you are.

That's everyone. No one's perfect, and no one needs to be.

feel like when my mother died, she took with her the Mia I saw when she looked at me. I could never find that girl in my own reflection. To Mom, I was special—bright, powerful, beautiful—her angel. To the rest of the world, I was just a girl. Small for my age, shy, passingly pretty, smart enough. Just Mia.

Story is story, Stella said. It's a portal you walk through into another world. And this world—which usually sucks—just disappears.

Why did the act of simplifying your life seem so complicated and require so much effort? Why was there never any time to do it?

Jones still labored under the delusion that he could bend Ricky to his way of thinking, that with anger, hard words, and harsh punishment he could force their son to do and be what he wanted—in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

worked. But she could live with it. "So

We don't choose where we come from, Marshall. And we often have little to say about what happens to us. But the adult understands that he and he alone is responsible for his life. You have choices now, choices that will affect your future.

You'll find true happiness in the smallest things.

Everyone has flaws, even if you can't see them.

God help you in America if you are not thin and fit, attractive, athletic, and coordinated, driven to win at any cost. God help you if you are broken or sad, or even just cerebral, or artistic, or just want to be left alone. You will be told in a million different ways—directly, subliminally—just how deficient you are. But nowhere will the message be

people who linger on the edge, looking down, the people who pick up the phone and reach out for help? Most of the time, you can talk them down. They are looking for a way back to the light.

She was annoyed by her mother's lack of consideration for the rest of the family, not to mention her lack of foresight about the future. Elizabeth was unwilling to talk about alternatives to living alone in a gigantic old house that she might not be able to manage one day, the care of which would fall to Maggie and Jones.

Or she could listen to that other voice, the voice that wasn't a voice but something so deep, so indivisible from her own consciousness that it didn't have sound.

Her mother always said that when you were sad or worried or angry, that you had to do something. Anything. Go for a walk. Make cookies. Draw a picture. Clean your room. Never just lie there and feel sad or mad, because those feelings become like weights, holding you down, and they only get heavier, and you only get less likely to move them.

But that was her karma, always involved with the wrong man. Some were rich, some were poor, some were handsome, some were homely. But they all had one thing in common—they were wrong for her.

It's about the players, their journey, how they begin, how they evolve, and the point at which their stories cease to be told. There is always another monster to be slain, another trial to overcome. There is always another chapter.

Why do we celebrate the monsters, the destroyers, the killers among us?

He was homeless in the truest sense, within.

Where I train we smack our palms and knuckles against cinderblocks. This action creates tiny fissures in the bones. When those fissures heal, the bone is stronger. I can put the blade of my palm through a two-by-four.