“Dad and I leave town in the early dark. It's the second Sunday of the holidays, and we pack up the old blue car with enough clothes for summer and hit the road. It's so early he's wiping hills of sand piled in the corners of his eyes. I wipe a few tears from mine. Tears don't pile, though. They grip and cling and slide in salty trails that I taste until the edge of the city.”

“I seemed to be the only person I knew without a plan that would put the world on its feet and wipe the tear from every eye.”

“Though cast away am I from the heart of my city, black tears dribble from mine eyes at the sight of the fearful trail blazing towards her gates!”

“You haven’t lived until you’ve wiped your ass with a pile of sand. Toilet paper doesn’t measure eternity the way the sands of time do.”

“I don't cry to get my way," I defended my emotional inabilities, and then began wiping away the tears. "It's just this is really hard.""Annalisa, if I thought for one second that the tears were fake, you wouldn't sway me. But, I've never seen so many honest tears in my life.”

“They are all leaving me, Daddy," I wiped the tears from my eyes. "I'm going to be here all alone with all these secrets.”