You have to teach 'em not to mess with you. You gotta be the big guy don't let him hurt you. If he hits you stand back up and beat the shit out of him.

The only reason I haven't shot you yet is because he's the one who should get to do it," I say. "Stay away from him or I'll decide I no longer care.

Forcing your love on someone who doesn't love you is an emotional rape, because your victim's heart was not aroused, you jumped into it without foreplay.

The human race tends to remember the abuses to which it has been subjected rather than the endearments. What's left of kisses? Wounds, however, leave scars.

When kindness comes at the expense of truth, it is not a kindness worth having. And when generosity leads to silence or abuse, it is not a generosity worth giving.

I don't understand why some kids git a good school and mother and father and some don't. But Rita say forgit the WHY ME shit and git on to what's next.

She always says I'm the best friend that she's ever had... how do you hang up on someone who needs you that bad? ~From 'Laura' on The Nylon Curtain

My dad had limitations. That's what my good-hearted mom always told us. He had limitations, but he meant no harm. It was kind of her to say, but he did do harm.

Have you ever gotten to a point where you looked at your own life, thought "Fu** this," and reached for the economy-sized Valium? Ah, suicide. So dark and seductive.

Shame is internalized when one is abandoned. Abandonment is the precise term to describe how one loses one’s authentic self and ceases to exist psychologically.

Who I am now is who I was before. The three years between, they were the aberration. You wouldn't recognize the person I became during that lost time. I barely do.

The patterns learned as a child, repeat as an adult. Those with an abusive childhood are very often oh-so blind to this inescapable truth.— André Chevalie

One might say my life has been tragic. Yet, as I sat in pain in the hospital I raised my tired hands toward the sky, palms facing in, fingers spread, and I gave thanks.

Sometimes you get so tired of each day, you wish it was over. But it just goes on and on, like the silent prayers that forever go unanswered." - excerpt from: freefalling

I came to this house for safety. They came because the foster care system ran out of homes. We stayed because we were stray pieces of other puzzles, tired of never fitting.