“Add "nice" to whatever you're doing and watch opportunities open up all around you.”

“Eventually kids become grown-ups too, and from there, the world is whatever they choose to make of it.”

“(Out of the Shadow is) Exceptional....Meticulously plotted, beautifully paced, its an intelligent, fascinating story that draws you in.I couldn't put it down, a great read..Winn, masterfully weaves together the lives of characters into a rich and vivid tapestry,all the while exploring complex human emotions.A definite page turner.Patricia O'Halloran”

“That's the thing," Jo says. "You think you know what you're in for. I mean, you tell yourself that, of course, it's not going to be wine and roses and all of that bullshit for the rest of your life, but then, one day, you wake up, and your fucking husband has morphed into someone whom you barely recognize. And you sit there and you stare at him while he scratches his balls through his underwear at the kitchen table, and you think, 'This is totally not what I signed up for. I mean, who knows if I even love this ball-scratching, foul-breathed man?' And then you wonder if you love him more out of habit than out of anything else." She chews the inside of her lip and considers. "And I guess from there, all bets are off.”

“Jake: I'm not offering up excuses of any kind... I was just saying that sometimes shit happens, and I don't have a choice.Natalie: No, Jake, that's where you're wrong. Me getting cancer? True enough, I had no choice. How you treat the ones you love? Well, there, you always have a choice.”

“I'd recognized it only recently. I wasn't sure if it was because she had changed or I had, but it didn't really matter. I recognized it just the same... If you just noticed the shiny veneer on the outside, they'd always look perfect. So you had to peer closer, watch them when they didn't think they were being watched. Eventually, you'd notice the dings.”

“...I realize that lessons are meant to be learned, honored even, or else you can spend your life running so far from them that you erect a false existence around the very thing you should be embracing.”