but sometimes one person can hold you up in life, keep you standing, and without that hand to hold, you can find yourself free-falling no matter how strong you used to be, no matter how hard you try to remain steady.

Nothing was easier to shatter than the fragile shield of an idealist.

And no one drank just one shot of tequila.

Of course you can fall in love. You just have to let yourself. They don't call it falling for nothing. -Kate

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.

In the sea of grief, there were islands of grace, moments in time when one could remember what was left rather than all that had been lost.

A romance novel focuses exclusively on two people falling in love. It can't be about a woman caring for her aging mother or something like that. It can have that element, but it has to be primarily about the male-female relationship.