“Sometimes holding on was all you could do.”

“Sometimes, he thought, all you could do was wait.”

“Sometimes the sins you haven't committed are all you have left to hold onto.”

“They would always be a family, but if she'd learned anything in the past few weeks it was that a family wasn't a static thing. There were always changes going on. Like with continents, sometimes the changes were invisible and underground, and sometimes they were explosive and deadly. The trick was to keep your balance. You couldn't control the direction of your family any more than you could stop the continental shelf from breaking apart. All you could do was hold on for the ride.”

“Sometimes you have to be a high-riding bitch to survive. Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold onto.”

“How vast was a human being's capacity for suffering. The only thing you could do was stand in awe of it. It wasn't a question of survival at all. It was the fullness of it, how much could you hold, how much could you care.”