“In my family, we seem to have a tortured history of not saying what we ought to and not meaning what we do.”

“Maybe who we are isn't so much about what we do, but rather what we're capable of when we least expect it.”

“That maybe who we are isn't so much about what we do, but rather what we're capable of when we least expect it.”

“Families were never what you wanted them to be. We all wanted what we couldn't have: the perfect child, the doting husband, the mother who wouldn't let go. We live in our grown-up dollhouses completely unaware that, at any moment, a hand might come in and change around everything we'd become accustomed to.”

“words are like nets - we hope they'll cover what we mean, but we know they can't possibly hold that much joy, or grief, or wonder.”

“but if I've learned anything, it's that we don't know half of what we think we do. And we know ourselves least of all.”

“You did really great up there,” I tell her, because I don’t know how to say what I really want to: that the people you love can surprise you every day. That maybe who we are isn’t so much about what we do, but rather what we’re capable of when we least expect it.”