“ This is home, it's the only place I want to be, but at the same time everything familiar feels strange. It's the same as it ever was except without the people who most belong here. Jael McHenry
“ I love it," I say. "So I learned it." It's an explanation that leaves a lot out. But I learned a long time ago that people don't really want explanations. Jael McHenry
“ I'm completely out of control, and I can hear the beginnings of the chant, get/out/, but now that I'm not being touched maybe I can master it and I shut the world out: separating an orange into skinle… Jael McHenry
“ His voice is muddy, that's what it is. Dark and brown and muddy. A note to it like coffee left too long on the burner. And unsweetened, bitter chocolate. But there's dirt in it too, deep, dark dirt, l… Jael McHenry
“ Everybody struggles with this stuff, you know. With social discomfort and grief and fitting in. People with syndromes, people with disorders, people with diagnoses, and without. People who would be cl… Jael McHenry
“ The scene is most beautiful without people in it. People just screw things up. Forget the whole thing, the world, all the living people, I tell myself, and it has a ring of truth to it. The dead are b… Jael McHenry
“ But I can't force everything into the arrangement I'd like. I can't use denial to make everything simple. Jael McHenry
“ It preoccupies me until it's time to leave. It seems such the right expression of grief. I am sad, so in whatever small way I can, I will tear myself apart. They've taken what's on the inside and made… Jael McHenry
“ One of my professors in college used to say As the wise man said, Do or do not, there is no try, but the advice columns generally say the opposite. If someone promises to try, and you're happy with th… Jael McHenry
“ Heartbreak is stupid and impossible. Hearts don't break. Hearts squeeze, they wrench, they ache, they shrivel. Hearts pull apart in wet chunks like canned tomatoes. Jael McHenry
“ If you don’t know how to deal with emotion, other people’s feelings can hit you like a drug. Jael McHenry
“ I preferred to think of myself as a cat. If I think of my behavior as cat behavior instead of people behavior, it pretty much always makes sense. Jael McHenry
“ I will take a new approach to death, because what is important about death is not the dead. It’s the living. Those of us left behind. Jael McHenry
“ I tell myself I’m fine on my own, but am I? No friends to fall back on, no relationships, no support. Left to my own devices, I have no devices. Jael McHenry
“ There is something intriguing about knowing how things are going to turn out, but being constantly surprised about how they'll get there. Jael McHenry
“ I find the title How to Be Good. Curious, I open it up. I'm disappointed to find it's fiction. Jael McHenry
