“There are always lessons. Alexandra could hear her grandmother's voice. Life would be nothing more than random acts if we didn't have the lessons. Ignoring them is what makes senseless tragedies, senseless.”

“I do not have a hero complex. I have always been attracted to strong, independent women. I like a girl who has her shit together. No strings. Simple. Confident. But the way she nearly sighed the word 'broken'--as if it was her sole identifier, as if it's branded on her somehow, as if admitting this has cost her dearly, shamed her--just killed me a little bit. I want to save her. I want to be her hero. I want to make her see she is so much more than her damaged past.”

“I don't know how to make you believe I'm sorry. I fucked up. I made a huge mistake. Again. I know that, but I also know there is way more to what happened than you're telling. I was freaked out and I wasn't thinking clearly, but I would never purposely hurt you, Hope. Ever. I didn't even kiss you until you asked me to. I would never...”

“As I looked at [my future husband] I realized that, while I would never be my mother nor have her life, the lesson she had left was that it was possible to love and care for a man and still have at your core a strength so great that you never even needed to put it on display.”

“I'm not mad, Mason. I am crushed. Acting mad makes it easier to deal with than letting it rip me apart.”

“Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.”

“There was plenty of life left and if he had to he would use it all to get her back. The time had passed for making promises to her-all that was left for him was to act.”