“One must have sorrow to truly appreciate joy.”

“Sometimes grief is a comfort we grant ourselves because it's less terrifying than trying for joy. Nobody wants to admit it. We'd all declare we want to be happy, if we could. So why, then, is pain the one thing we most often hold on to? Why are slights and griefs the memories on which we choose to dwell? Is it because joy doesn't last but grief does?”

“I didn't emerge from the cocoon of my past to become an uninhibited, emotionally healthy butterfly. Nothing is ever that easy. Sometimes grief is a comfort we grant ourselves because it's less terrifying than trying for joy. Nobody wants to admit it. We'd all declare we want to be happy, if we could. So why, then, is pain the one thing we most often hold on to? Why are slights and griefs the memories on which we choose to dwell? Is it because joy doesn't last but grief does?”

“Peace, hands and mouth smeared with chocolate pudding, blinks and says nothing. Happy frowns. Bliss, firmly ensconced on Liesel’s hip, babbles something so cute and precious it would be nice to take a second to appreciate it, but Liesel is caught between her genuine and somewhat frightening fury and her shame at realizing that she’s turned into everything she swore she’d never be.”

“She hadn't planned on having another beer, but then...when did she ever plan to drink another one? They usually just followed one after the other like stepping stones set into a stream, and she hopped along them one at a time until she lost her balance and fell into the drink.”

“Sunny could think of lots of reasons about why the angel was crying, but the one that felt the best to her was that the angel wept so Sunny didn’t have to.”

“I have seen clouds part for the sun. I have seen rainbows. I have seen flowers in the morning, covered in dew, and I have seen sunsets so brilliant with fire they made me want to weep. And I have seen Dan smile at me, his lips still wet from my kiss, and if I had to choose which sight moved me the most I would say it was that one.”