What matters most is how you respond to your heartbreaks and your disappointments and your fears. What matters most is who you become in response to them.

In fiction, you can be as true as you want. Real life is a different story.

People are always beautiful when you love them.

I believe women are too hard on themselves. I believe that when you love someone, she becomes beautiful to you. I believe the eyes see everything through the heart. Nothing in the world feels as good as resting them on someone you love.

Maybe the past is supposed to fade-and that's actually a kindness of human memory.

It's vital to learn how to make the best of things.

There on the sofa, as I nursed Maxie and her eyes slid closed, I said to the girls, 'I think nursing is where kisses come from.' I had been thinking about it. Nursing had to be the place where nurturing and sweet milk and soft skin and mouths and warmth all came together and started to mean something about love. I had always assumed kissing was a learned thing, like waving bye-bye or speaking a language. But since Maxie, I'd decided that it was innate, the adult version of something we know to do from the moment we're born. All of it tied together in the cycle of life.