You count the hours you could have spent with your mother. It's a lifetime in itself.

when he smiles it's as if you'd just told him the first joke on earth.

What's wrong with being number 2?

He had his time measures and he had her. That was his life. For as long as he could remember, it had been that way, Dor and Alli, even as children. "I do not want to die," she whispered. "You will not die." "I want to be with you." "You are.

He almost told her everything right then, that very moment. But you grab a moment, or you let it pass. He let it pass.

We’re so wrapped up with egotistical things, career, family, having enough money, meeting the mortgage, getting a new car, fixing the radiator when it breaks—we’re involved in trillions of little acts just to keep going. So we don’t get into the habit of standing back and looking at our lives and saying, Is this all? Is this all I want? Is something missing?

Mothers support certain illusions about their children, and one of my illusions was that I liked who I was, because she did. When she passed away, so did that idea.