“Listen earnestly to anything [your children] want to tell you, no matter what. If you don't listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won't tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff.”

“When your head tells you one thing and your heart another, listen to your heart. It tells no lies.”

“When you don't talk, there's a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said.”

“As if fixing the little errors would made the big stuff manageable.”

“None of this stuff is really about morality or religion or dogma or big fancy questions of life after death. The capital-T Truth is about life before death.”

“when the end came and there was initial chaos and rampant starvation, people learned all too well that you could not rely on stuff. You needed friends. A dead phone provided no companionship; an empty house no comfort. The latest fashions provided no food, but you could always eat a close friend.”

“All I can tell you is this. Some hearts break from grief some from joy. Some even break from love. But hearts break because they are too small to contain the gifts life gives us. Your task will be to let your heart grow large enough not to break”