When someone stabs you it's not your fault that you feel pain.

Things are strongest where they're broken.

In winter the very ground seemed to reach up and grab the elderly, yanking them to earth as though hungry for them.

Life is change. If you aren't growing and evolving, you're standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead.

After spending most of her life scanning the horizon for slights and threats, genuine and imagined, she knew the real threat to her happiness came not from the dot in the distance, but from looking for it. Expecting it. Waiting for it. And in some cases, creating it. Her father had jokingly accused her of living in the wreckage of her future. Until one day she'd looked deep into his eyes and saw he wasn't joking. He was warning her.

The women in the room chatted about love, about childhood, about losing parents, about Mr. Spock, about good books they'd read. They mothered each other.

No good ever comes from putting up walls. What people mistake for safety is in fact captivity. And few things thrive in captivity.