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Since I started reading on my iPad, I started highlighting quotes or lines that relate to my wayward behavior or just my thoughts at the time (since authors write more eloquently then I ever could). I just wanted to share some of them and see if anyone has any to add. They may be helpful. BS are welcome to share as well.

“It was as if someone had put a large cherry bomb into a child’s toybox. There had been a big bang and everything had gone everywhere. Toys had scattered from one end of the playroom to the other. Some things were shattered beyond repair, other things would be fixable, but most of the stuff had just been scattered. Those things were still a little too hot to handle, but they would be fine once they had cooled off.
Meanwhile, the job was to sort things out. Throw away the things which were no longer good. Set aside the toys which could be fixed. List everything which was still okay. Get a new toybox to put the things in, a nice new toybox. A strong toybox. There is a frightening, sickening ease—and a clear attraction—to the way in which things can be blown apart. The hard job is bringing things together again. The sorting. The fixing. The listing. And discarding the things which are no good, of course.
Except … can you ever bring yourself to throw away the things which are no good?”
- Stephen King, The Stand

There are holes in my life. Many holes. I've tried to fill them with coupons, and dick, and babies. There are so many holes. Now I myself have become a hole - hallow, fallow, empty.
- Jill on the TV show Weeds

“I will never understand where your penchant for ugliness comes from. Seems like you have enough of that in your life without deliberately seeking it out”

“Problems always start long before you really, really see them”
- Sharp Objects - Gillian Flynn

What is imaginary—our friendships, my loves, these people, my inventions—is untouchable, if not inviolate. And then, there is reality: there is what happens, what you know, or think you know, with certainty. But maybe these two are ultimately one; maybe you can’t protect the one from the other. There’s that room inside your mind where you are most freely and unconcernedly yourself, and then there are the many layers of masquerade by which you protect that skinless core
- The Woman Upstairs - Claire Messud

“Trauma is not just the result of major disasters. It does not happen to only some people. An undercurrent of trauma runs through ordinary life, shot through as it is with the poignancy of impermanence. I like to say that if we are not suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, we are suffering from pre-traumatic stress disorder. There is no way to be alive without being conscious of the potential for disaster. One way or another, death (and its cousins: old age, illness, accidents, separation, and loss) hangs over all of us. Nobody is immune. Our world is unstable and unpredictable, and operates, to a great degree and despite incredible scientific advancement, outside our ability to control it.”
- Mark Epstein in The New York Times

I've thought a lot about it: how you can ricochet from a moment when you are on top of the world to one where you are crawling at rock bottom. I've thought about all the things I could have done differently, and if it would have led to another outcome. But thinking leant change anything, does it?
- The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult

I'm Hard to love, hard to love, no I don't make it easy. I couldn't do it if I stood where you stood. Hard to love, hard to love and you say that you need me. I don't deserve it but I love that you love me good.

Lyrics by Lee Brice

I have to say: UO's quote from East of Eden by John Steinbeck (perhaps the best book ever), posted yesterday, is perfect--not just for WSs but for BSs, as well.

Don't you dare take the lazy way. It's too easy to excuse yourself because of your ancestry....Whatever you do, it will be you who do it--

Substitute any excuse/rationale for behavior for "ancestry" (for me, it was "lying and cheating and decades of abuse") and really focus on the last sentence---and it is wise, wise counsel for everyone.

No matter what hand we are dealt, and by whom, we direct our own actions.

This is both daunting and empowering. It's hard to look in the mirror and say, for example, "Your anger is out of hand. It's harming you (or others, or both)." But it is tremendously empowering to learn that, hey! It is COMPLETELY within your power---no matter what others thrust in your direction ---to direct yourself in a different and constructive manner.

Awesome realization, really, and one that all should have the joy (and pain) of discovering. It changes everything.