But even in her laughter there was something missing. She never seemed to be truly happy; she just seemed to be passing time while she waited for something else. She was tired of just existing; she wanted to live.

Her best friend was gone and nobody understood that no amount of makeup, fresh air or shopping was going to fill the hole in her heart.

We have a tendency to put ourselves last, we concentrate on everything else; work, friends, family, home issues, but we ignore the deeper stuff until it becomes so compressed that it can explode.

I believe in the magic of books. I believe that during certain periods in our lives we are drawn to particular books--whether it's strolling down the aisles of a bookshop with no idea whatsoever of what it is that we want to read and suddenly finding the most perfect, most wonderfully suitable book staring us right in the face. Unblinking. Or a chance meeting with a stranger or friend who recommends a book we would never ordinarily reach for. Books have the ability to find their own way into our lives.

Nobody can pretend to know what people want to read or hear or see. People rarely know it themselves; they only know it after the fact.

Not like a heart, which let people in without permission, held them in a special place she never had any say in and then yearned for them to remain there longer than they planned.

Alone or not, you gotta walk forward.