“Childhood is such a delicate tissue; what they had done this morning could snag somewhere in the little ones, make a dull, small pain that will circle back again and again, and hurt them in small ways for the rest of their lives.”

“I will love again, Olivia, you will hurt forever. What you’ve done is…You are worthless because you make yourself that way. You will remember me every day for the rest of your life because I was the one and you threw me away.”

“What was that thing that could make two people promise one another to spend every day of the rest of their lives together? Ah,I found it. It was a thing called love. A small simple word.”

“But the hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes. The heart of a hurt child can shrink so that forever afterward it is hard and pitted as the seed of a peach. Or again, the heart of such a child may fester and swell until it is a misery to carry within the body, easily chafed and hurt by the most ordinary things.”

“Easy and difficult things are juat small parts of life, the rest are what have to be done.”

“There was no one clear point of loss. It happened over and over again in a thousand small ways and the only truth there was to learn was that there was no getting used to it.”