When your mother is made out of your dreams, anything real is bound to disappoint you.

What she couldn't put into word was what had happened in between to change her from one person into the other

When you're different, sometimes you don't see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn't.

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.

And in general, the residents of the town wondered why they all felt hollow just beneath the throat, the result of missing something they had never been able to name in the first place.

You don't make peace only with G-d. You make it with people. Sin isn't global. It's personal. If you do wrong to someone, the only way to fix that is to go to that same person and do right by him.

The best thing about endings is knowing that just ahead is the daunting task to start over.