When you lose your parents, the sadness doesn't go away. It just changes. It hits you sideways sometimes instead of head-on. Like now.

I understood the word 'swoon'. It felt that way, like 'sweep' and 'moon' and 'woo', all those words smashed together in one word that stood for that feeling, right then.

I knew that the deepest of tragedies was simple: to love, and not to be loved in return.

Never regret trusting someone. It proves you have a heart. But if he turns out to be a lying worm ... I'm not going to waste my time crying. Because I am way too fabulous for that.

I always wanted a father. Any kind. A strict one, a funny one, one who bought me pink dresses, one who wished I was a boy. One who traveled, one who never got up out of his Morris chair. Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. I wanted shaving cream in the sink and whistling on the stairs. I wanted pants hung by their cuffs from a dresser drawer. I wanted change jingling in a pocket and the sound of ice cracking in a cocktail glass at five thirty. I wanted to hear my mother laugh behind a closed door.

That's it. Gently now," Reagan said to Nellie. "We'll move onto the hard stuff tomorrow." "This...isn't...the hard stuff?" Nellie spit out through gritted teeth. Reagan grinned. "You really hate me right now, don't you?" "Immeasurably." "Good. Give me ten.

I loved all the parts of him, even the ones I didn't understand.