Laurel: I don't need a ring or a license, or a spetacular white dress. It's not marriage so much, or at all really, that matters. It's the promise. It's the knowing someone wants me to be part of his life. Someone loves me, that I'm the one for him. That's not just enough, it's everything.

Women are the worst. They zero in on some guy.Oh boy, he's the one, gotta get me that one. So they do. Then they spend the rest of their time trying to figure out how to change him. Then if they manage it, they're not all that interested anymore, because guess what? He's not the one anymore.

You can’t go back. Can’t fix what broke. But you can go forward. And every step matters. Every one makes a difference.” She pushed away from the desk, cupped his face in her hands. “From where I’m standing, you’re the best step I ever took.

She surrounded herself with books at work and at home. Her living space was a testament to her first and abiding love with shelves jammed with books tables crowded with them. She saw them not only as knowledge entertainment comfort even sanity but as a kind of artful decoration.

That was the biggest problem with getting used to someone, she thought. You were lonely when they weren't there.

If you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it.

Don't 'honey' me in that southern-fried twang.