“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”

“Holding Eleanor's hand was like holding a butterfly. Or a heartbeat. Like holding something complete, and completely alive.”

“What are the chances youd ever meet someone like that? he wondered. Someone you could love forever, someone who would forever love you back? And what did you do when that person was born half a wor...”

“The first time he'd held her hand, it felt so good that it crowded out all the bad things. It felt better than anything had ever hurt.”

“It was the nicest thing she could imagine. It made her want to have his babies and give him both of her kidneys.”

“My girlfriend is sad and quiet and keeps me up all night worrying about her.”

“Some secrets are heavy because they aren't yours to tell.”

“The hardest secret to keep is one you don't know you have”

“For the first time he perceived that if you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself. You must know all the while that it is there, but until it is needed you must never let it eme...”

“With a secret like that, at some point the secret itself becomes irrelevant. The fact that you kept it does not.”

“Then Cassie told her story. The feeling was like gathering up everything she's ever done or felt or known up to that moment and tying it into a ball and pitching it with all her might as far away a...”

“Every woman needs secrets,' her mother said with a smile then, her eyes meeting Sally's in the rearview mirror. 'Remember that when you're old like me, pumpkin, because the world has a way of makin...”