It's never the differences between people that suprise us. It's the things that, against all odds, we have in common.

Sometimes it made her want to put her fist through glass; other times, it made her cry a river.

Part of growing up was learning not to be quite that honest - learning when it was better to lie, rather than to hurt someone with the truth.

I would tell them that when you look at a person, you never know what the're hiding.

I wonder if what makes a family a family isn't doing everything right all the time but, instead, giving a second chance to the people you love who do things wrong.

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.

Like Connor, Alex protected me -and he was the only person I let close enough to do it. Like Connor, Alex could finish my sentences before I did. But unlike Connor, for whom I had ultimately come too late, I was just in time to take care of Alex.