“Morning's great that way. You can cry yourself to sleep and wake up wondering what the fuss was over.”

“The best words I ever heard about making your own reputation," Gram said, looking over her shoulder into the back seat, "is that you come into the world crying while everyone is smiling at the miracle of you, and you should live your life so when you leave it, you're smiling, but everyone else is crying because the miracle of you is gone.”

“And there was no way to unsay words you'd blurted out, no matter how sorry you were.”

“Dad and Gram didn't take a single day on the ranch for granted. Regardless of the weather, the greeted each morning as if they'd embrace it, filling their eyes with a vaulting sky and sagebrush-coverd ridges. Then they gave silent prayer of thanks for living the life they loved.”

“What did you say, Gram? About there being no church out here?" "I said that the sky was the roof of my cathedral and the desert was its floor and any time I paid attention, I could feel a higher power all around me.”

“Courtship? Had I said courtship? What did I think, that this was Jane freakin' Eyre?”

“Listen twice as much as you talk, since you were born with two ears and one mouth.”