if you think of a relationship as a living entity, I guess it's one thing if the missing two percent is, like, a fingernail. But when it's the heart, that's a whole different ball of wax.

There are two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations.

I became a firefighter because I wanted to save people. But I should have been more specific. I should have named names.

I wonder if other mothers feel a tug at their insides, watching their children grow up into the people they themselves wanted so badly to be.

There are millions of people in the world, and the spirits will see that most of them you never have to meet. But there are one or two you are tied to, and the spirits will cross you back and forth, threading so many knots until they catch and you finally get it right.

Houses are cellular walls; they keep our problems from bleeding into everyone else's.

In books, you always know what's coming next. There are no surprises.