the mother's first job is to raise a daughter strong enough to outlast her.

The flaw is the thing we love.

Grief doesn't necessarily make you noble. Sometimes it just makes you crazy, or primitive with fear.

What they never tell you about grief is that missing someone is the simple part.

Maybe this is the point: to embrace the core sadness of life without toppling headlong into it, or assuming it will define your days.

memory is both the curse of grief and the eventual talisman against it; what at first seems unbearable becomes the succor that can outlast pain.

Scratch a fantasy and you'll find a nightmare.