“Instead, we'd do what we always did, the only thing we'd ever been dependably stellar at: we'd read.”

“We'd traveled, we'd been to lots of parties, lots of movies and concerts, we'd slept in. We'd done all those things that people with children seem to miss so passionately. We didn't want those things anymore. We wanted a baby.”

“Few people actually read. Instead, everyone likes pretending they read. If we spent as much time reading as we say we do, we'd be grossly overweight and depressed.”

“This is what growing old is. We think we will learn sanskrit, learn Greek. Instead, what we learn is more than we ever wanted to learn about things we wish we'd never heard of.”

“If we'd been edible we'd never have lasted this long.”

“Take the stupidest thing you've ever done. At least it's done. It's over. It's gone. We can all learn from our mistakes and heal and move on. But it's harder to learn or heal or move on from something that hasn't happened; something we don't know and is therefore indefinable; something which could very easily have been the best thing in our lives, if only we'd taken the plunge, if only we'd held our breath and stood up and done it, if only we'd said yes.”