“Cast off everything/everyone else has known for you./Move gratefully, from these old skins./And this time, if you toughen,/decide/for whom?”

“Some people thought spring was the time of renewal, but Sadie had always equated that feeling with autumn. It felt like a shedding of mistakes - falling leaves, crisp breezes. As if you could cast off an old skin to work on a new one.”

“In the end it was Tabby who cast the deciding vote, as she so often has at crucial moments in my life. I'd like to think I've done the same for her from time to time, because it seems to me that one of the things marriage is about is casting the tiebreaking vote when you just can't decide what you should do next.”

“Go buy milk,' Robert said at last.Dylan moved for Buggy's door.But if ou come around here with that old lady's money next time I might have to take it off you.'Dylan recognized this as a sort of philosophical using. He was grateful for the implied sense of pooled information. He and Robert could move forward together from this point into whatever was required.”

“Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can, there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.”

“Life is at its best when everything has fallen out of place, and you decide that you're going to fight to get them right, not when everything is going your way and everyone is praising you.”