But Noah, you're not supposed to do this, and I can't let you. So go back to your room." Then smiling softly and sniffling and shuffling some papers on the desk, she says: "Me, I'm going downstairs for some coffee. I won't be back to check on your for a while, so don't do anything foolish." She rises quickly, touches my arm, and walks toward the stairs. She doesn't look back, and suddenly I am alone. I don't know what to think. I look at where she had been sitting and see her coffee, a full cup, still steaming, and once again I learn that there are good people in the world.

That’s the thing about life, he knew. There was always a but.

If you like her, if she makes you happy, and if you feel like you know her---then don't let her go.

Everything a baby does strikes a parent as the most magical thing he/she has ever seen.

Publishing is a business. Writing may be art, but publishing, when all is said and done, comes down to dollars.

A moment later, he plopped down on the sand beside her, and when they accidentally touched, Gabby had the briefest flash of them sitting together just like this on a hundred different weekends in the future.

Admittedly, there was a lot she still didn't know about him, but she did know this: He completed her in a way that she'd never thought possible. Knowledge isn't everything, she told herself, and she knew then that, in Nana's words, he was the toast to her butter.