“And also forever too late for Lily to learn that raging passion predicts nothing but a mess of bad news for everybody.”

“There is too much bad news to justify complacency. There is too much good news to justify despair.”

“You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”

“Comfort and familiarity were wonderful but they also dulled passion and excitement. Predictability and habit made surprises almost impossible.”

“Forever, just the word fills Beverly with an unaccountable, schoolmarmish sort of rage. Forever, that's got to be bad math, right? Such terrifying math.”

“At best the family teaches the finest things human beings can learn from one another generosity and love. But it is also, all too often, where we learn nasty things like hate, rage and shame.”