“Being in your mid-thirties brought benefits, I reminded myself. You began to appreciate tidiness, smallness, things in their place. This is the shape your life has taken, I said. Be existential. Go to sleep.”

“This was one of those mid-thirties moments when you take a look at the stale, half-chewed bagel your life has become and kiss jealousy on its smokey mouth.”

“I hope you find a place in your life when you can let go and be happy. But I’m not a dirty secret. I’m not bad and wrong for being comfortable with myself, and I won’t let you make me feel that way.”

“When you stay too long in the same place, things and people go to pot on you, they rot and start stinking for your special benefit.”

“Rory,I used to think home was a place. Four walls with a door. Now I know it’s your voice. Your laughter. Waking to your smile against my throat and your breath fluttering over my pulse while I turn you over and bury myself inside you…that’s home. That’s life and I’ve never appreciated it more.~ Sam”

“I remind mothers everywhere of the sanctity of your calling. No other can adequately take your place. No responsibility is greater, no obligation more binding than that you rear in love and peace and integrity those whom you have brought into the world.”