Mom's always telling me to smile and hoping I'll turn into a smiley person, which, to be honest, is kind of annoying.

The truth is that I think that most people, and most people in this book, 'Goodbye, Stranger', are really doing their best but they're stumbling all over the place and they're hurting each other deliberately and by accident.

Mom. She always says to look at the big picture. How all of the little things don't matter in the long run. . . I know that Mom is right about the big picture. But Dad is right too: Life is really just a bunch of nows, one after the other. The dots matter.

I love a book that makes me ask questions about what I think or how I see the world or how I feel, so I hope that 'Goodbye, Stranger' is that kind of book for some people.

When something works for you, all you can do is cross your fingers and hope that it will work for someone else.

I still think about the letter you asked me to write. It nags at me, even though you're gone and there's no one to give it to anymore. Sometimes I work on it in my head, trying to map out the story you asked me to tell, about everything that happened this past fall and winter. It's all still there, like a movie I can watch when I want to. Which is never.

Well, it's simple to love someone," she said. "But it's hard to know when you need to say it out loud.