Black Cake

You young people have so much more freedom now, even in terms of who to love. But it also seems as though you have less guidance, despite all those how-to lists on the Internet. It’s as if there are so many choices that it’s no longer possible to know which path is right for you.

This is the thing about people, Benny thinks. You can look at a person and truly have no idea what they are holding inside.

Eleanor had lied to her husband for all those years because she understood that if you wanted someone to keep loving you, you couldn’t ask them to bear all of your burdens, couldn’t risk letting them see all of who you were. No one really wanted to know another person that well.

Her mother’s childhood stories had always been vague. Crisscrossed timelines, missing details. A lot of missing details. Benny had grown up with the feeling that there were things her mother had preferred not to say about her past. She’d grown up hearing that her parents’ upbringing had not been as easy as hers, so she hadn’t insisted on knowing mo

Just don’t go thinking that this is all there is to succeeding in life, this picking up and walking away from people. It should never be an easy answer to your troubles. I have lived long enough to see that my life has been determined not only by the meanness of others but also by the kindness of others, and their willingness to listen. And this is

“What you need to do, Byron, is know who you are, and where you are, at all times. This is about you, finding and keeping your center. This is how you take on a wave. Then you might find that you need to practice more, or there’s a storm swell coming in, or the wave is simply too much for you. You might even decide that you’re just not cut out for