And my first item on each day's list is this: Wake up. If I can check that off, I've already done something and can get on with the business of living and trying to honor the memory of those I love who are no longer here.

You don't have to have one emotion at a time.

I was learning that when you're with someone who is dying, you may need to celebrate the past, live the present, and mourn the future all at the same time.

The greatest gift you can give anyone is your undivided attention.

We’re all in the end-of-our-life book club, whether we acknowledge it or not; each book we read may well be the last, each conversation the final one.

Evil almost always starts with small cruelties.

That’s one of the things books do. They help us talk. But they also give us something we all can talk about when we don’t want to talk about ourselves.