They always prided themselves on looking youthful. “Forty’s the new thirty,” they’d joke. Until heartbreak and grief enter your life, and then forty’s the new one hundred.

If I did something to hurt Frankie and she said that I was never getting near her heart again, I’d spent the rest of my life trying anyway. That’s the difference between you and me, Tom. I’d go back to the moment it all fell apart and I’d start there.

Our spirit is mightier than the filth of our memories.

Mama says that satisfaction isn't what I should search for. Respect is. Respect? I detest that word. Probably because in this world you have to respect the wrong people for the wrong reasons.

Maybe she'd always been there. Maybe strangers enter your heart first and then you spent the rest of your life searching for them.

He came third in the state for woodwork,” Francesca explains. “We actually had to be proud of him for a whole week. Tough times.

She gently placed his hand against the beating pulse of her heart. Always, always it beat out of control, and he held his hand to it until he felt it perfectly match his.