“You didn't get past something like that, you go through it -- and for that reason alone, I understood more about her than she ever would have guessed.”

“I knew what it was like to lose someone you loved. You didn't get past something like that, you got through it.”

“Fumbling in the dark, Josie reached underneath the frame of her bed for the plastic bag she’dstashed-her supply of sleeping pills. She was no better than any of the other stupid people in thisworld who thought if they pretended hard enough, they could make it so. She’d thought that deathcould be an answer, because she was too immature to realize it was the biggest question of all.Yesterday, she hadn’t known what patterns blood could make when it sprayed on a whitewashedwall. She hadn’t understood that life left a person’s lungs first, and their eyes last. She had picturedsuicide as a final statement, a fuck you to the people who hadn’t understood how hard it was for herto be the Josie they wanted her to be. She’d somehow thought that if she killed herself, she’d beable to watch everyone else’s reaction; that she’d get the last laugh. Until yesterday, she hadn’treally understood. Dead was dead. When you died, you did not get to come back and see what youwere missing. You didn’t get to apologize. You didn’t get a second chance.Death wasn’t something you could control. In fact, it would always have the upper hand.”

“I have a sister, so I know-that relationship, it's all about fairness: you want your sibling to have exactly what you have-the same amount of toys, the same number of meatballs on your spaghetti, the same share of love. But being a mother is completely different. You want your child to have more than you ever did. You want to build a fire underneath her and watch her soar. It's bigger than words.”

“It's the way he gets noticed, you know? I mean, imagine what it would be like if you were a squirrel living in the elephant cage at the zoo. Does anyone ever go there and say, Hey check out that squirrel? No, because there's something so much bigger you notice first.”

“Everything you said, Ellie, it's true. I should be very angry. I was, for a time, but now I'm not. Now I've gotten past my own selfishness to where I've got to help her. See, when you're Plain, you don't put yourself forward. You just don't do it, because that would be Hochmut–puffing yourself up–and the truth is there's always others more important than you. So Katie, when she hears others telling lies about her and this baby, she won’t want to fight back, or stand up for herself. I am here to stand up for her.”

“It was a strange thing, to still be in love with your wife and to not know if you liked her. What would happen when this was all over? Could you forgive someone if she hurt you and the people you love, if she truly believed she was only trying to help?I had filed for divorce, but that wasn't what I really wanted. What I really wanted was for all of us to go back two years, and start over. Had I ever really told her that?”