“Labels are for cans, not people.”

“It was my kind of song: fast and fun and exuberant,the lyrics tumbling out almost faster than my ears could follow them,some times rhyming,sometimes not. . .”

“On the flight over to Chicago, I thought of a story Mom had once told me from her days as a pediatric nurse. "There was this little boy I was taking care of," she said "and he was terminally ill,and we all knew it,but he kept hanging on and hanging on. He wouldn't die, it was so sad.And his parents were always there with him,giving him so much love and support,but he was in so much pain,and it really was,time for him to go.So finally some of us nurses took his father aside and we told him, 'You have to tell your son it's okay for him to go. You have to give him permission.' And so the father took his son in his arms and he sat with him in a chair and held on to him and told him over and over, that it was okay for him to go,and,well,after a few moments,his son died.”

“Grief does not expire like a candle or the beacon on a lighthouse. It simply changes temperature.”

“There is only one you for all time. Fearlessly be yourself.”

“I don't mind him not talking so much, because you can hear his voice in your heart; the same way you can hear a song in your head even if there isn't a radio playing; the same way you can hear those blackbirds flying when they're not in the sky”

“The house was full of murmuring voices. I could practically feel each room getting choked with the hot breath of other people.”