“There was no going back to the way things were, because all you ever got was the way things are.”

“Through pictures, we cut reality in pieces. We selected only the choicest moments, discarding the rest as if they'd never happened.”

“It seemed everything that had ever lived and died in this world had passed through here, had left its indelible imprint.”

“But I knew he wouldn't kiss me. Not tonight. Not like this. There was too much between us now, all the words and near misses. All the potential, the alternate futures that would stretch out before ...”

“You ask me why Im nice to you, he said. Why, why, why. But you dont ask me stuff that matters. Who I am or where I been. What I see when I look at you. What I want.”

“They say you can never step into the same river twice. And maybe that's how it was for Papi now, memories shifting and re-forming soundlessly beneath him while the rest of us sat on the shore and w...”

“work at our responsibility as parents as if everything in life counted on it, because in fact everything in life does count on it.”

“Happiness [is] only real when shared”

“That's what people do who love you. They put their arms around you and love you when you're not so lovable.”

“Reality wasn't as important as people made it out to be; to Jude it was simply the physical state in which he found himself, an environment he had limited control over.”

“The idea was a splinter in my mind. Always there, always stinging,even when I wasn't conscious of it. Even when I wasn't thinking about it.”

“Through pictures, we cut reality in pieces. We selected only the choicest moments, discarding the rest as if they'd never happened.”