"'Don’t tell anyone,' he said next. 'Why not?' I asked. 'We have to protect the kids. They can’t know. The town can’t know.'''

"He always shows up when I least expect it ― and I really should expect it by now."

"I’m here to experience my body for once without analyzing it."

“As a child, I assumed my Koreanness just fell away like a snake shedding its skin. I thought, 'That must be what happens when you’re adopted.'”

"I was 8 years old the first time I took an opiate — an expired painkiller I found in our medicine cabinet with a 'May cause drowsiness' label."

"'Oh, so it isn’t all just in my head,' I thought. 'Everyone really is judging me because of my weight gain.'"

"After living through so much trauma and experiencing so much love, I finally understand that this holiday can mean what we want it to mean. We get to decide."

"I sat through appointment after appointment, having my pain dismissed, being told I was 'depressed,' being told I had 'IBS,' just as they had told Tori."

"Health behaviors are important, but they are to be encouraged and supported, not to be used as shame tactics."

"When my mother was found dead of unknown causes last February, I hadn’t called her in three weeks. I miss that opportunity, the number in my phone, the spur-of-the-moment catch-up."

After a long day in the news mines, I just want Karen Huger to wash the pain away.

"I was a different person now. I couldn’t go back to dresses, heels and lingerie."

"I would lie in bed desperate to do the things I cared about, but I was immobilized. The speedier my thoughts, the slower my response."

"Our society has grown accustomed to seeing white parents with Black kids. But Black parents with white kids? Not so much."

"By the time I was 50, I no longer had to put everyone in front of me."

"Of course everyone would line up to get shots, to protect one another, to help the vulnerable like my parents, we reasoned. We were wrong."