“Norman Mailer said there were four stages in a marriage: first the affair then the marriage, then children and then finally the fourth stage, without which you cannot know a woman, the divorce.”

“Raising children I’ve decided is a lot sadder than I expecte4d. Seeing them grow up brightly and vividly is tempered by the knowledge that each year brings another share of lasts. The last time I push my daughter on a swing. The last time I play Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. The last time I read a bedtime story. If I could give my daughters one piece of advice I would tell them to make the most of the first times -their first kiss, their first date, their first love, the first smile of their first child…There can only be one.”

“Loving children is easy. Keeping them is hard.”

“You know its going to be a bad day when you are having a prostate examination and you feel both of your doctor's hands on your shoulders!”

“Sometimes people don’t come back,' said Rachel. 'That’s why you should always make your goodbyes count.”

“I know I should have ignored her. I should have called. Many times I almost did. I got as far as picking up the phone. Sometimes I even dialed your parents' number but then I wondered what I'd say to you. We had left it too long. How would we ever get around the silence, which was like an elephant sitting in the room?”

“Why do our parents have the ability to make us feel like children even when our hair is graying and we have a mortgage that feels like a Third World debt? (135)”