“Now was not the time to be sentimental. As a child, she'd been ridiculously sentimental about loss, about time passing.”

“I do urge you to welcome children. Even one child will make a difference in your life that you cannot fathom. I promise you, my girl.”

“Life is full of tough choices between less-than-perfect alternatives.”

“You want, you want, you want; when you're so lucky to have, to have, to have.”

“She gave in to a hankering for a cup of tea even though she knew that the idea of a cup of tea-sitting still, calmly sipping-was more appealing than actually sitting still and trying to calmly sip.”

“So many people came into your life, and they were such a part of the everyday that it was impossible to imagine them gone until, one day, they were.”

“Maybe all men should have to fight for something sometime in their lives. I'm thirty-three years old and I've never had to fight for a blessed thing, have I?”