I’d promised myself that I’d really work on talking more, talking about uncomfortable things, because I could see from Brian how well things could work out if you did.

And if I didn’t, I’d spend the rest of my life wondering who I could have turned into if only I’d had the guts to try.

When you don't talk, there's a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said.

Every fairy tale, it seems, concludes with the bland phrase "happily ever after." Yet every couple I have ever known would agree that nothing about marriage is forever happy. There are moments of bliss, to be sure, and lengthy spans of satisfied companionship. Yet these come at no small effort, and the girl who reads such fiction dreaming her troubles will end ere she departs the altar is well advised to seek at once a rational women to set her straight.

And I have to tell you, as tough as farming is, the idea of farming when you’re losing money year after year... that’s not life even, that’s like death. That’s eternal damnation.

I swear, every person I know gets far more satisfaction from doing good deeds than receiving them. Maybe that’s the whole point in the end, all of us putting up with good deeds, tolerating them as best we can, counting the minutes until we have the opportunity to reciprocate.

How could I pretend to be someone else when I was already failing at being the person I already was?