Sometimes I get lonesome for a storm. A full-blown storm where everything changes. The sky goes through four days in an hour, the trees wail, little … - Joan Didion

if someone “chose” you, what does that tell you? Doesn’t it tell you that you were available to be “chosen”? Doesn’t it tell you, in the end, that there are only two people in the world? The one who “chose” you? And the other who didn’t?

People with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called *character,* a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to the other, more instantly negotiable virtues.... character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life — is the source from which self-respect springs.

You talk crazy any more and I'll leave.
Leave. For Christ's sake leave.
She would not take her eyes from the dry wash. All right.
Don't, he would say then. Don't.
Why do you say those things. Why do you fight.
He would sit on the bed and put his head in his hands. To find out if you're alive.