“Childhood friends are continuity, uninterrupted connections between selves, and you hold on them. You hold on them and you love them, but sometimes they're not quite comfortable.”

“But life is not like that. You are not an airline. You can't remove a single olive from every salad served in first class and save one point two million dollars.”

“Dead parents are gruesome, yes, but anyone who’s anyone in children’s literature has either been orphaned or abandoned; well-adjusted kids from stable two-parent homes don’t go on hero quests.”

“It took me years to figure out that upset was upset, and tumultuousness was not the same thing as passion. Love isn't drama.”

“I just wanted to tell you that I understand if you go. Its okay if you have to leave us. Its okay if you want to stop fighting.”

“I'd heard of Evergreen Care Center before. Cass and I had always made fun of the stupid ads they ran on TV, featuring some dragged-out woman with a limp perm and big, painted-on circles under her e...”

“Sometimes two people have to fall apart, to realize how much they need to fall back together.”

“Good literature is one key to peace. When we stop reading each other, when we stop paying attention to each other's words and stories, we too easily oppose one another.”

“There is only one motive for writing a novel: to be published and read. To me there is no distinction between the mystery novel and the novel, only between good books and bad books. A good book tak...”