“I wish I had [made that song]. No, I don't That would be to take it from somebody else. But it's mine for all that.''What makes it yours?''I love it so.''Does loving a thing make it yours?''I think so, Mother -- at least more than anything else can. . . . Love makes the only myness,' said Diamond.”

“There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we'd all love one another.”

“Son, that's a pretty hard question to answer. But I do believe that any wish you make can come true if you help the wish. I don't think that the Lord meant for our lives to be so simple and easy that every time we wanted something, all we had to do was wish for it and we'd get it. I don't believe that at all. If that were true, there would be a lot of lazy people in this old world. No one would be working. Everyone would be wishing for what they needed or wanted."Papa," I asked, "how can you help a wish?""Oh, there are a lot of ways," Papa said. "Hard work, faith, patience, and determination. I think prayer and really believing in your wish can help more than anything else.”

“That was what I wanted, but I don't need it to be gone. I can love you and I can love life and bear the pain all at the same time. I think the pain might even make the rest better, the way a good setting can make a diamond look better.”

“Any place, then, can become a cemetery. All it takes is your body. It's not fair, I think, and I get this petulant wish for ugly flowers and mourners, my mother's old familiar grief. Somebody I love to tend my future grave. Probably this is the wrong thing to be wishing for.”

“So, tell me about yourself, Scarlet.” Gabriel said. “I already know about your love for coffee and sleeping in - which makes you awesome, by the way - but what else?”