“Life was about spending time together , about having the time to walk together holding hands, talking quietly as the sun go down. It wasn't glamorous, but it was, in many ways, the best that life has to offer. Wasn't that how the old saying went? Who, on their deathbed, ever said they wished they had worked harder? Or spent less time enjoying a quiet afternoon? Or spent less time with their family?”

“My father built a time machine and then he spent his whole life trying to figure out how to use it to get more time. He spent all the time he had with us thinking about how he wished he had more time, if he could only have more time.”

“Mothers who know do less. They permit less of what will not bear good fruit eternally. They allow less media in their homes, less distraction, less activity that draws their children away from their home. Mothers who know are willing to live on less and consume less of the world’s goods in order to spend more time with their children—more time eating together, more time working together, more time reading together, more time talking, laughing, singing, and exemplifying. These mothers choose carefully and do not try to choose it all.”

“You've spent all this time afraid to talk about what was going on between you two, but if you'd ever bothered to ask him, you would have discovered that he wasn't worth it.”

“Love is the thing that holds life together. Sort of like rind to a melon, cloth to a stuffed animal, or money to the time spent with a stripper.”

“I spent so much time telling myself that this wasn't home that I started to believe it,” she said carefully. “Belonging has always been tough for me.”“I can be your home,” he said quietly. “Belong to me.”