She understood how a world jammed with phones, email, and faxes could still leave you feeling utterly alone.

But then again, maybe bad things happen because it’s the only way we can keep remembering what good is supposed to look like.

It doesn't matter what it is that leaves a hole inside you. It just matters that it’s there.

I pointed to the wound. "It's missing," I said. My grandmother smiled, and that was all it took for me to stop seeing the scar, and to recognize her again. "Yes," she said. "But see how much of me is left?

You are only as invincible as your smallest weakness, and those are tiny indeed - the length of a sleeping baby's eyelash, the span of a child's hand. Life turns on a dime, and - it turns out - so does one's conscience.

You can widen the feet of a compass, but they are still attached at the top; you can spin them away from each other, but you always wind up where you started.

This is love, I think. A place where people who have been alone may lock together like hawks and spin in the air, dizzy with surprise at the connection. A place you go willingly, and with wonder