There are always times in life that you don't fit in. But you have to go forward and make a place for yourself. That's what growing up is all about. Being strong and believing in yourself-even when you're most afraid.

...This fear was unbearable. It unwrapped who she was, as neatly as he'd unwound her bandage, leaving too much pain and ugliness exposed. Nerve endings; he'd said they were the problem [causing phantom pain in the amputated limb]." Things that cut off, that ended abruptly or died--like parents and marriages--kept hurting forever.

We women. as glue for the family. lead lives that are important and conflicted. What we women choose to give up for our families is important and valid.

It is a kiss that, once begun, never really ends. Interrupted, yes. Paused, certainly. But from that very moment onward, Vera sees the whole of her life as only a breath away from kissing him again. On that night in the park, they begin the delicate task of binding their souls together, creating a whole comprising their separate halves.

I'm an insomniac lately. It's one of the many prizes you find in the Cracker Jack box of a crumbling [relationship].

We can't live other people's lives for them. Even if we love them.

Before this trip and all that she'd learned about the three of them, she would have gotten angry or changed the subject. Anything to obscure the pain she felt. Now she knew better. You carried your pain with you in life. There was no outrunning it.