“Death and loss, they plague you. So do memories. Like the Mississippi's incessant slap against the levees, they creep up with deceptive sweetness before grabbing your heart and pulling it under.”

“Maybe with Sara's accident he had finally begun to see that life continued after a fall and that the hands that reached to pull you out didn't have to be your own.”

“But there is room now in my heart for more memories, carved by a letting go that I could find only by coming home to a place I'd never been.”

“A great man once wrote, "Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire." If only I were as eloquent as Mr. de la Rochefoucauld...I miss you, I miss you, I miss you. And I want you. And I need your kiss. And your touch on my skin like a man needs water. Always.”

“Life isn't perfect. It's not supposed to be. We all make mistakes. You bash your head against the wall and you get hurt, but you walk away and make the best of it. And that's what makes it life, Brenna, not perfection. You'll never find happiness if you only expect to find a perfect life. Happiness is something we reach for while we try to learn from our disappointments.”

“Sometimes I guess you need to lose everything before you realize what's really important.”

“Mama?""Yes, Emmy."She traced a rivulet of rain with her finger as it made its journey down the glass. "How do you know when it's been long enough?"Emmy could sense her mother smiling into the phone. "When you relaize that love doesn't have a time span. Only pain does. I think sometimes it's hard to distinguish between the two, so we just hold on to both of them like they're inseparable.”