Marriage is about compromise; it's about doing something for the other person, even when you don't want to.

Life was about spending time together , about having the time to walk together holding hands, talking quietly as the sun go down. It wasn't glamorous, but it was, in many ways, the best that life has to offer. Wasn't that how the old saying went? Who, on their deathbed, ever said they wished they had worked harder? Or spent less time enjoying a quiet afternoon? Or spent less time with their family?

People come, people go – they’ll drift in and out of your life, almost like characters in a favorite book. When you finally close the cover, the characters have told their story and you start up again with another book, complete with new characters and adventures. Then you find yourself focusing on the new ones, not the ones from the past.

there were moments in life when violence was necessary to save lives

People want pretty much the same things: They wanted to be happy. Most young people seemed to think that those things lay somewhere in the future, while most older people believed they lay in the past.

Frugality, I've learned, has its own cost, one that sometimes lasts forever.

A joy as intense as pain