It's easy to be gracious when you're winning. So you have no excuse not to be.

Every day of your life feels like you're climbing up the mountain. And then you get there and you stay for a bit. And it's nice at the top. But then you start sliding down the other side.

Maybe our parents' lives are imprinted within us, maybe the only fate there is is the temptation of reliving their mistakes. Maybe, try as we might, we will never be able to outrun the blood that runs through out veins.
Or.
Or maybe we are free the moment we're born. Maybe everything we've ever done is by our own hands.

Too much self-sufficiency was sort of mean to the people who loved you. You robbed them of how good it feels to give, of their sense of value.

When ther is only you, you do not get to choose which jobs you want, you do not get to decide you are incapable of anything. There is no room for distaste or weakness. You must do it all. All of the ugliness, the sadness, the things most people can't stand to even think about, all must live inside of you. You must be capable of eberything.

That is the thing about the water, it is not yours to control. You are at the mercy of nature. That's what makes surfing feel like more than sport: it requires destiny to be on your side, the ocean must favor you.

Our parents live inside us, whether they stick around or not. They express themselves through us in the way we hold a pen or shrug our shoulders, in the way we raise our eyebrow. Our heritage lingers in our blood.

I don't think what you're born into says anything about where you're headed.

Our family histories are simply stories. They are myths we create about the people who came before us, in order to make sense of ourselves.

• Marry me, Junie. One more time, this time forever. 
  - I thought last time was forever. 
  

Alcoholism is a disease with many faces, and some of them look beautiful.