Marriage is not a ritual or an end. It is a long, intricate, intimate dance together and nothing matters more than your own sense of balance and your choice of partner.

Be real and be unashamed, even of your faults. I do truly know what my husband is made of and vice versa.

Intimacy is being seen and known as the person you truly are.

You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful.

The past is a candle at great distance: too close to let you quit, too far to comfort you.

Everyone has two memories. The one you can tell and the one that is stuck to the underside of that, the dark, tarry smear of what happened.

To hold happiness is to hold the understanding that the world passes away from us, that the petals fall and the beloved dies. No amount of mockery, no amount of fashionable scowling will keep any of us from knowing and savoring the pleasure of the sun on our faces or save us from the adult understanding that it cannot last forever.