Monika Basile said this quote

I was mortified that I could spend a lifetime with someone and not know them at all—that I could love someone so blindly and never question who they really were. Was it stupidity? Or is that merely what love actually is—to see the good, to love the good and wonderful and ignore the rest? I think that is what I used to believe…I don’t believe that anymore.Love is seeing every damn rotten thing about someone and loving them anyway. It’s not being too afraid to look deep inside another person and still being able to see all the good messed up in with the bad. Love is accepting the shit as well as the roses. I think I failed to ever smell the bullshit. I only smelled the roses and never realized that it is the shit that makes the roses bloom.

~ Monika Basile

I didn’t thank God. Doctor Carter, do you think everything happened the way it did because I forgot to thank God? Do you think that God might somehow be as petty as I am?

~ Monika Basile

When Gran finally came home she stepped into the house and wept. She grabbed Sophie and I to her and cried, “Oh my dears…” and though Gran was usually a harsh woman and we were uncomfortable with her affection, we were grateful for it this day. In the months she was gone we realized she was what held us all together. Broken or not, crazy or not—Gran kept us and made us a family. Truly she did.

~ Monika Basile

Sometimes we do not realize how many people give a damn until something horrible happens. And sometimes we realize that those who should give a damn, whom we counted on giving a damn, sometimes really don’t

~ Monika Basile