...one can't avoid the storms and calamities of life, but one can at least find the right partner to face them with.

Haven't you ever wished that you could steal back just a few hours of your past?" she asked softly. "That's all I want... just a little taste of what might have been.

...it was better to answer, no matter how ineptly, thank to withhold a reply. Because sometimes silence could wound someone nearly as badly as a bullet.

These impossible women! How they do get around us!

A man's vanity is more fragile that you might think. It's easy for us to mistake shyness for coldness, and silence for indifference.

The way glass can be molded or blown or cut into any kind of shape made me think about how we as people - our characters or souls - can be shaped or changed by outside influences.

I had learned that there were substitutes for a mother who couldn't be a mother. You could find love with other people. You could find it in places you weren't even looking. But the original wound would never heal. I would carry it with me forever, and so would Tara. That was the trick . . . accepting it, going on with your life, knowing it was part of you.