“I thought of the bowl of water my mother taught me to look into. It was true, everything a person ever needed to know was right there in a single bowl small enough to fit in the palm of one hand.”

“I know who you are in your heart,' Andres said. 'That's all that matters.' And that was it. That was the moment. Now I knew how I would feel if I ever lost him. That was how you knew love. My mother had told me that. All you had to do was imagine your life without the other person, and if the thought alone made you shiver, then you knew.”

“She was partial to emeralds; she said they were the single thing that remained constant, always green, always the same...My mother had been right, it was one thing that lasted, the one thing we could depend on. Other than our love for each other, it was all we had right now.”

“I thought he knew me better than most...Then one nigh Jack brought me flowers, a handful of fading daisies he'd picked up at a farm stand, but flowers all the same. That was the end; that was how he ruined everything.”

“My mother, Abra, had taught me that all people are made from the same dust. When our days here are gone, all men and women enter the same garden. ”

“My mother was teaching me that the inside of something was not necessarily its outside. Always look carefully, she told me. Look with more than your eyes.”

“No one knows you like a person with whom you've shared a childhood. No one will ever understand you in quite the same way.”