“I love you. I promise you don’t need to worry about anybody else stealing my heart because there is no competition. You won a long time ago.”

“Let me ask you this my friend. Did you truly love my granddaughter? Please be honest." "I think so." "You don't think love. You love with your heart.”

“I loved you before I even knew the name for it. Everyday I'd sit beside you, inhaling your scent, looking at your beautiful face. Every night, dreaming about you. You eclipsed everything else. It was you. Always you.”

“Off and on for many years, I tried to write a book about my childhood. I’d bring chapters to workshop, to writing group, and I always got the same comments: How could you live this way? How could you survive this? It’s too raw. You don’t speak to these people, do you? I was deeply hurt by these reactions, and also confused. This was my mother. I loved her. This was my family. My life. How could it be too raw?”

“Your Most Exalted Majesty, Your Grace, ect., ect.: I don't know what ruddy else I can offer. You won't have a fig to do with my lands or my money or anything, I suppose, of value to anyone else. I suppose that makes you a good father but it certainly makes things rum for me. I haven't anything else to offer, but a sincere heart, one that aches for Bramble, her sweet, plucky spirit, her smart whippish mouth, her heart, and her dear hand. I'm in agony now, hoping that my steward will convince you. If not I think I'll break all the windows in the house and drown myself in a bucket. A most sincere heart- Lord Edward Albert Hemly Haftenravenscher, Esq.”

“How, I asked, could I have gone my whole life not knowing about my mother? How could I have not known what Keith knew when he saw our house? “It’s your mom,” Helder said. “Because it’s Mom.” He sounded firm and knowing and clear. “When a child has an alcoholic father, he sees him drink all day long but he doesn’t have a label, a concept. You just know that at night, when the tires make a certain sound in the driveway and the doors slam a certain way, with a certain sound, you just know you need to hide.”

“Not my finest hour," he says, shaking his head."You realize you did it for no reason," I say. I tell him about talking to my dad and explain that I was crying because of that."That information would have been useful BEFORE I shoved him in the pool.”