“I remove my wedding rings and put them in the jewelry box. So many others have done this. I am not the only one. I am not the only one. But here, I am the only one.”

“I decided in high school that I wasn't going to get married too soon. I'd forgotten that you can also wait too long, and then the only candies left in the box are the squished ones, rejected for their questionable insides. And if I'm honest, I'd have to count myself among those with questionable insides.”

“The truth is, we usually only show our unhappiness to another woman. I suppose this is one of our problems. And yet it is also one of our strengths.”

“mostly, you only make a change, the balding chinese man tells me. I stare at him for a moment, uncomprehending, wondering if perhaps he is offering advice,then realize he is talking about money: I am to make change .― Elizabeth Berg, Open House”

“I am so often struck by what we do not do, all of us. And I am also, now, so acutely aware of the quick passage of time, the way that we come suddenly to our own separate closures. It is as though a thing says, I told you. But you thought I was just kidding.”

“You are where I unlock myself, where I say that I have often put down my wooden spoon to stare out the kitchen window to see the men I thought were magic for their story-telling or their way of walking, or the ones I was so strongly sexually attracted to, even though they weren't good people - at least not for me.”

“I always think incipent miracles surround us, waiting only to see if our faith is strong enough. We won't have to understand it; it will just work, like a beating heart, like love. Really, no matter how frightened and discouraged I may become about the future, I look forward to it. In spite of everything I see all around me every day, I have a shaky assurance that everything will turn out fine. I don't think I'm the only one. Why else would the phrase "everything's all right" ease a deep and troubled place in so many of us? We just don't know, we never know so much, yet we have such faith. We hold our hands over our hurts and lean forward, full of yearning and forgiveness. It is how we keep on, this kind of hope.”