“Fun, like champagne bubbles, can't completely fill you up.”

“And marking off time struck me as something like counting empty spaces—spaces you know can't ever be filled.”

“Six years is plenty long enough to soothe the tearing anguish of...death, but maybe no amount of time is enough to soothe something that is no longer there. Something like an emptiness that can never be filled because it's only a bit of space carved out of air.”

“Longevity can't be the only test of love.”

“All I know is that growing up hurts too much. Growing down is what I'd really like to do. Be little enough again so it would be perfectly natural to be protected from the wind and the rain—and the world.”

“And taking care of somebody else made me feel good. Like discovering you're more than you thought you were. More even than you hoped to be. ”

“Like the Bible tells us, when a man will lay down his life for a friend, well, then there ain't no greater love in this here world than that.”