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

That was what a best friend did: hold up a mirror and show you your heart.

We women make choices for others, not for ourselves, and when we are mothers, we...bear what we must for our children. You will protect them. It will hurt you; it will hurt them. Your job is to hide that your heart is breaking and do what they need you to do.

....both had learned that everything could change in an instant, and that the heartfelt vows of people in love were fragile words that, once shattered, could cut so deeply you'd bleed forever.

Sometimes being a good friend means saying nothing.

Time goes too quickly. This is the advice that my mother should have given me from her hospital bed. Instead of vague, unknowable quips like "Be careful what you wish for," she should have told me time slides away on a hillside of loose shale and takes everything in its path - dreams, opportunities, hopes. And youth. It takes that fastest of all.

It occurred to her suddenly, sharply, that she wanted to be in love... She wanted not to feel so damned alone in the world.