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.

Love was that way. You could not render it in black or white. It always came down to the strange, blended shades of grey.

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

You don't make a friend," Jacob said with a scowl. "It's not like they come with directions like you'd find on a box of macaroni and cheese.

Wheather it is conscious or not, you eventually make the decision to divide your life in half - before and after - with loss being that tight bubble in the middle. You can move around in spite of it; you can laugh and smile and carry on with your life, but all it takes is one slow range of motion, a doubling over, to be fully aware of the empty space at your center.

I wonder if you've got a minute." I have many minutes, all of them used toward a common purpose.

No one ever asks a kid for her opinion, but it seems to me that growing up means you stop hoping for the best, and start expecting the worst.