“Grown up, and that is a terribly hard thing to do. It is much easier to skip it and go from one childhood to another.”

“After Mary confessed that dream to him, Jack got to wondering how women felt about motherhood once their children are grown and didn't need them anymore. How do they close the storybooks, box up the toys, and pack up the memories of the deeply lived-in childhoods of their babies? Childhoods that fly by quickly and selfishly, without regard to a mother's unconditional love and sacrifice. How does a mother go on being a mother when one day she wakes up and finds that her arms are empty and her grown children are walking away from her without so much as a glance back?”

“They had grown up together from childhood, and all along Edith had been remarked upon by every one, except Margaret, for her prettiness;”

“Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age. The child is grown, and puts away childish things. Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.”

“Every minute doing one thing is a minute not doing something else. Every choice is another choice not made another path grown over lost.”

“A child isn’t born bitter. I point no fingers as to who tainted the clean, pure pool of my childhood. Let’s just say that when I realized that I didn’t want to grow up, the damage was already done. Knowing that being grown up was no swell place to be means that you are grown up enough to notice. And you can’t go back from there. You have to forge another route, draw your own map.”