“I never had a tight relationship with my dad- who was an excellent provider but didn't really have much conversation or emotional support for me so...”

“Mom said, "His spirit is there," and that made me really angry. I told her, "Dad didn't have a spirit! He had cells!" "His memory is there." "His memory is here," I said, pointing at my head. "Dad had a spirit," she said, like she was rewinding a bit in our conversation. I told her, "He had cells, and now they're on rooftops, and in the river, and in the lungs of millions of people around New York, who breathe him every time they speak!”

“In the fifty years my parents were married, in the thousands of conversations my dad had with me, it had just never come up. And so there I was, weeks after his death, getting another lesson from him about the meaning of sacrifice—and about the power of humility”

“If I had never changed my mind about what I wanted in a relationship or about what I wanted out of a relationship, do you know who I'd be with? Probably not, but I do:SUSAN: former crush from the third grade.ATTRIBUTES: blonde hair, proficient at reading and writing, great at freeze tag, excellent at all recess and playground activities.RELATIONSHIP STRENGTHS: female, talked to me, shared her fruit snacks with me, didn't hate me.RELATIONSHIP PITFALLS: I like things other than recess now; the qualities I liked in third grade might not be enough for a healthy adult relationship...but having fruit snacks never hurts.”

“I crumple on my bed. For a second, i believed that what i wanted more than anything in the world had come true. For a second, i believed that my dad was back. but he isn't. He's gone again. he's really truly gone and i know it. i know i'll never see him again no matter how much i want to. The candle in me has blown out and i'm afraid, really, really afraid, because my biggest fear is true. i have to live my life without my dad, my running partner, the guy who taught me amnesty and sang john lennon songs really off key.”

“Im a girl who has been tamping down her emotions and keeping them tightly guarded her whole life. And that works really well for me... And now I felt like my shell had a dangerous crack in it. Without much more effort on his part, it would split wide open and my enormous river of emotions would gush out - the bad and the good. It was pretty much the scariest thing I'd ever thought of." - Maximum Ride.”