The English judged a person so that they'd be justified in casting her out. The Amish judged a person so that they'd be justified in welcoming her back. Where I'm from, if someone is accused of sinning, it's not so that others can place blame. It's so that the person can make amends and move on.

He rises over me, a second sun, and fills me with light and heat.

There had been so many easy words between them that Daniel was guilty of nodding every now and then and tuning out the excess. He hadn't known, at the time, that he should have been hoarding these, like bits of sea glass hidden in the pocket of a winter coat to remind him that once it had been summer.

Life was what happened when all the what-if’s didn’t, when what you dreamed or hoped or – in this case – feared might come to pass passed by instead.

If his voice hasn't been the melody of my life, it's been the bass line, so subtle you don't notice it until it's missing.

Doing the right thing for someone else occasionally means doing something that feels wrong to you.

I knew her well enough to understand that when Delia pushed you away, it was her way of making sure she didn't get shoved first.