“The only thing you have to do in this life is die," said Mrs. Pinsky..."everything else is a choice.”

“But the past is long, and the future is short.”

“We were like wanderers in a desert, blessed with a rare downpour, but unable to store the rain.”

“It requires a certain kind of bravery, I suppose, to choose the status quo. There's a certain boldness to inaction.”

“This was the first time I noticed it, the inevitable space between father and man.”

“I could no longer remember the way my mother's eyes looked before the slowing. Had they always been so red around the edges? Surely, those pockets of gray beneath her lower lashes were new. She sti...”

“My mother... she is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her.”

“As mothers and daughters, we are connected with one another. My mother is the bones of my spine, keeping me straight and true. She is my blood, making sure it runs rich and strong. She is the beati...”

“It's not always easy being her daughter.' I think,' she said, 'sometimes it's hard no matter whose daughter you are.”

“Cut the ending. Revise the script. The man of her dreams is a girl.”

“Girls get screwed.Not that kind of screwed, what I mean is, they're always on the short end of things.The way things work, how guys feel great, but make girls feelcheap for doingexactly what they b...”

“Try patting them on the back or shoulder and telling them everything is going to be fine. Lots of times when girls cry, they don't want you to fix the problem, they just want to be consoled.”