“Let me get this thing straight, Inigo--we had SCRAPS for dinner? I'M in YOUR fantasy and the best you can come up with is SCRAPS?" She turned toward the door then. "You have no chance of winning my heart.”

“She's afraid to tell me anything important, knowing I'll only turn around and write about it. In my mind, I'm like a friendly junkman, building things from the little pieces of scrap I find here and there, but my family's started to see things differently. Their personal lives are the so-called pieces of scrap I so casually pick up, and they're sick of it. More and more often their stories begin with the line "You have to swear you'll never repeat this." I always promise, but it's generally understood that my word means nothing.”

“The best training is to learn to accept everything as it comes, as from Him whom our soul loves. The tests are always unexpected things, not great things that can be written up, but the common little rubs of life, silly little nothings, things you are ashamed of minding one scrap”

“Scraps of Magic:These are little scraps of magic & when you paste them together you get a memory of something fine & strong, she said. Sometimes it takes till you're 40 to see it though.”

“Nothing can fill you up,” she stated.“Nope,” he agreed again.“You won’t let it.”“Barrel’s got a hole in the bottom, buddy, everything leaks out no matter how much you pour in.”She was silent a moment then she whispered, “Right.”She turned to the door and his hand gripped his bourbon so hard he had to focus everything on loosening his grip or the glass would shatter.Before she opened it, she turned back. “You don’t know, Cal, you have no idea.You’ve shut yourself up for so long in this fucking house with your tragic memories, you have no idea what’s about to walk out your door. Kate, Keira and me, we could have plugged that hole. We could have filled you so full, you’d be bursting. We would have loved that chance. We’d have given it everything we had, no matter the time that slid by, graduations, weddings, grandbabies, you’d have been a part of us and we’d have given everything we had to keep youso full, you’d be bursting.”Cal didn’t reply.“Joe,” she whispered, “you let me walk out this door, you’ll lose your chance.”Cal didn’t move.Vi waited.Cal stayed seated.”

“If there was one thing Brenda Dyerson was good at, she knew it, was cooking up the scraps destiny had laid out on its plates for her.”