“I don't suppose you have to believe in ghosts to know that we are all haunted, all of us, by things we can see and feel and guess at, and many more things that we can't.”

“You're never too old to keep failing your children, are you? Why weren't we told this was a life sentence?”

“Raymond, through some curious alchemy of his own, had come really to think a divorce was something you could win, as opposed to a situation in which the wounded attempt to contain loss. She once said to her friend Annie, “It’s like fighting over who gets the litterbox after the cat is dead. Raymond has forgotten we ever had a cat; he actually wants the litterbox. Full.” She said Annie had laughed and then Martha cried”

“I wanted this day, the perfect buttery sun like peach ice cream, the speed, the satin leather of the car seat, the fair. Forbidden fruit, a day like no other. ”

“What happened today was a terrible thing, but I believe with all my heart that the Good Lord is holdin' all of us in His arms. That man don't know who we are or where we live, and he ain't gonna find out. We all need to be careful in this world, but I promise you, for every bad person on this earth there's a hundred good ones.”

“The human mind is an amazing thing. It protects us when we can't protect ourselves. Sometimes when we're holding pain and it gets to be too heavy or goes too deep, we have to give in to it, let it knock us over and pull us all the way down. Once we hit bottom, we rest in a quiet place for a while. Then, when the pain eases and we're ready to face the world again, we come right back up.”

“We all die someday." Maybe the only thing that makes that fact bearable is the idea that death is the only way we can return to the stars.”