For the record, Irish," he informed her tightly, just in case she got the wrong idea, "I kneel to no one.

Although love could grow in times of peace, it tempered in battle. Daddy told me once - when I'd said something about how perfect his relationship with Mom was - that I should have seen the first five years of their marriage, that they'd fought like hellions, crashed into each other like two giant stones. That eventually they'd eroded each other into the perfect fit, become a single wall, nestled into each other's curves and hollows, her strengths chinking his weaknesses, her weaknesses reinforced by his strengths.

I would wear pink because I knew my future was anything but rosy. I would accessorize myself to the hilt, and I would wear flirty shoes because my world needed more beauty to counter all the ugliness in it. I would wear pink because I hated gray, I didn’t deserve white, and I was sick of black.

Her absence in my life was so painful that it was a presence.

Who and what we surround ourselves with is who and what we become. In the midst of good people, it is easy to be good. in the midst of bad people, it is easy to be bad.

He had a come-and-get-me-baby-I'm-pure-trouble-and-you're-gonna-love-it kind of attitude.

Using your own time to make someone else’s life better is, like, the nicest thing you can do for anybody.