But love wasn't about sacrifice, and it wasn't about falling short of someone's expectations. By definition, love made you better than good enough; it redefined perfection to include your traits, instead of excluding them. All any of us wanted, really, was to know that we counted. That someone else's life would not have been as rich without us here.

There was no easy switch that she could flip to stem the flow of feelings, no way to drain the memories that pooled like acid in her stomach because her heart no longer knew what to do with them.

When you have been with your partner for so many years, they become the glove compartment map that you've worn dog-eared and white-creased, the trail you recogonize so well you could draw it by heart and for this very reason keep it with you on journeys at all times. And yet, when you least expect it, one day you open your eyes and there is an unfamiliar turnoff, a vantage point taht wasn't there before, and you have to stop and wonder if maybe this landmark isn't new at all, but rather something you have missed all along.

There was, really, nothing you could use as a blueprint for your life, except your past. There was no starting over. There was only picking up the pieces someone had left behind.

When I was little I bragged about my firefighting father: my father would go to heaven, because if he went to hell he would put out all the fires.

I shouldn't have eavesdropped, but sometimes, that's the only way to find out the truth.

What you didn't tell someone was just as debilitating as what you did.