Love made you admire funny things about a person, like how good she was at remembering to return her library books and at slicing cucumbers very thin. She was a veritable wonder at pulling a splinter out of her foot.

You are not going to die, I know I said I'd let you, but I can't.

They needed to grieve alone was what Tibby's dad said. Lena wondered if really there was any choice in that. Everyone grieved alone.

A lot of friendship is about practice, that’s something I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older. It’s not simply some spiritual soul-bond of memories and longings, it’s really about having coffee every week, or talking on the phone every day or every other day - whatever suits you.

It was funny how the old practices always came around again. It was the rhythm of human enterprise to invent and worship some new approach, to fully reject it a generation later, to realize the need for it again a generation or two after that and then hastily reinvent it as new, usually without its original elegance. Scientists hated to look backward for anything.

She wasn’t sure if he wanted more from her or if he wanted less. Maybe it was both. Maybe it was always both.

All I could think to do was love her. That's all a person can do.