"We apply the language that is comforting and comfortable and familiar in order to grasp that which confuses and scares us. That is the first step toward cliché and stereotype, as they're comforting devices. They reduce the confusing world to the already familiar. We're always smoothing out the bumps of actual living to turn it into narratable life."

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In a family, you take on each other's problems and joys differently, and more intensely. The amplitude - and the undulation of the family - is different from the people you just generally bump into on the street, because you're chained together. And what happens if you break that chain? In almost every family that I know, someone has escaped, set themselves free, tried to run away - whatever what you want to call it. And often, they are made more conspicuous by their absence.

— Mary Kay Zuravleff