“You take the flotsam," I tell her, "I'll take the jetsam."You always get the jetsam,"she says pretending to pout. "Do you ever think if poeple heard our conversations they'd lock us up?"All the time.”

“Do you ever think if people heard our conversations they'd lock us up?"All the time.”

“I'm going to ask Bree if she'll help me.""I'm a little scared if her," I admit."Me too," Ally says, then laughs. "Maybe it's because she's so beautiful. Don't you think she's the most beautiful girl you've ever seen?"I shake my head. "I've seen prettier.""You have not.""I have." It takes all my courage to look up."Oh," she says, and then blushes furiously.”

“Whoa!" she says as I plow into her. " What are you DOING? Get off me!" I hang on tight. "Can't a girl just hug her big sister?" She stops fighting me. "Are you dying? Am I dying? Did Grandma die? I laugh. "No one died." "Then get off!”

“I made sure to pay attention to everything I was doing. To be fully in the moment. Because that's all life is, really, a string of moments that you knot together and carry with you. Hopefully most of those moments are wonderful, but of course they won't all be. The trick is to recognize an important one when it happens. Even if you share the moment with someone else, it is still yours. Your string is different from anyone else's. It is something no one can ever take away from you. It will protect you and guide you, because it IS you. What you hold here, in your hand, in this box, this is my string."Until recently, I thought it was death that gave meaning to life--that having an endpoint is what spurred us on to embrace life while we had it. But I was wrong. It isn't death that gives meaning to life. Life gives meaning to life. The answer to the meaning of life is hidden right there inside the question. "What matters is holding tight to that string, and not letting anyone tell us our goals aren't big enough or our interests are silly. But the voices of others aren't the only ones we need to worry about. We tend to be our own worst critics. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: 'Most of the shadows in this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine.' ... Wisdom is found in the least expected places. Always keep your eyes open. Don't block your own sunshine. Be filled with wonder.”

“I'm going to tell you a secret. Our lives are shaped by the future, not by the past. Once you decide how you want your life to be, all you need to do is live into that future.”

“When people see you're happy doing what you're doing, it sort of takes the power away from them to tease you about it.”