“It's not always easy being her daughter.' I think,' she said, 'sometimes it's hard no matter whose daughter you are.”

“She's my retirement gift, the platinum watch for being a mother." " This fortunate position - the one you couldn't apply for - is one you can't lose either. It's yours for life: this will always be your daughter's daughter. These two will always be yours, and you, theirs. I'll always be her Nana.”

“I want to go to the mother, take her hand, and tell her that although she and her daughter believe that every bad choice the daughter has ever made in life is her fault, it's not. It's really, really not.”

“She always camouflaged herself as a crowd. I've never been lonely, she said, but sometimes it's hard to think above the noise.”

“Quiet Pride:There has never been a day when I have not been proud of you, I said to my daughter, though some days I'm louder about other stuff so it's easy to miss that.”

“But I want her to grow up knowing that I was the first man ever to fall in love with her. I'd always thought the father/daughter thing was overstated. But I can tell you, sometimes, she looks at me and I just become a puddle.”