“She (my mom) said that when you need courage the most is when you realize what's happened in your life and you decide to get up the next morning anyway.”

“She’s had the moment. A moment isn’t a piece of time, it’s a question. A realization. A trauma. The moment comes when you look up and see your life stretching out for seventy more years….Is this life good enough for the next seventy years?”

“One day I'm going to catch you in a full-blown grin, Mr.Tucker," she said, wagging a finger at him, "and when I do, watch out because I'm going to crow in victory." "We all need goals in life, Miss Richards." J.T. swung two boards up onto his shoulder and peered down at her. "Mine's to get this stuff delivered before the first snow falls. You think I got a chance at making that happen?”

“My mom said that it just happens sometimes when you get older. You get halfway through with your life and you realize you haven't done the things you wanted to do or become what you'd thought you'd become and it's disheartening”

“Somethings you know right away to be final- when you lose your last baby tooth...Other times, you have to work out the milestone via subtraction, a math you do to assign significance, like when I figured out that I'd just blown through my last-ever wednesday with Mom on the day after she died.”

“A woman who’s lived in a cage all her life. And hates it. Bored in there, aren’t you. Waiting for life to happen. And when it finally does, it steals from you what you loved most. So take back. Explode. Lash out. Blow up”

“One day you do meet a man who kisses you and you can’t breathe around it and you realize you don’t need air. Oxygen is trivial. Desire makes life happen. Makes it matter. Makes everything worth it. Desire is life. Hunger to see the next sunrise or sunset. To touch the one you love. To try again.”