“It was a lesson she was still learning. When she had first started nursing, she had taken every death personally, like she was losing her father all over again. Every patient lost under her care wa...”

“[A dog is] a bundle of pure love, gift-wrapped in fur.”

“She loved him, and she was going to do everything she could to get him back. She hadnt come this far just to walk away. He was the love of her life, dammit. The man she wanted to marry. The world h...”

“Its easy to point out someone elses mistake, harder to recognize your own. Especially because most peopleexcept the lucky few like ourselvesare forced to live with their mistakes. So they learn to ...”

“Ah, selfish. Theres that word again. Sherry smirked. Its been hurled at me many a time, because being a mother and wife is all about selflessness, see? She imitated a perky, syrupy-sweet voice. Giv...”

“It’s easy to point out someone else’s mistake, harder to recognize your own. Especially because most people—except the lucky few like ourselves—are forced to live with their mistakes. So they learn...”

“I finally know the difference between pleasing and loving, obeying and respecting. It has taken me so many years to be okay with being different, and with being this alive, this intense. (xxvi)”

“Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.”

“Birthdays could be such a bummer when you were older than the country you lived in.”

“A nation discovers its truest dignity when it cherishes the dignity of those from whom it has not heard for a very long time.”

“I pray for my mother. That if she can't ever recover what she's lost or what she's losing, that she not feel like she's lost. I pray that we make her feel necessary and valued as long as possible. ...”

“Dementia: Is it more painful to forget, or to be forgotten?”

“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of wi...”

“My dear,Find what you love and let it kill you.Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.Let it kill you and let it devour your remains....”

“If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Did you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that couldn't be filled?”