Quotes from book

Handle With Care

“there was not much distinction between losing a friend and a lover: it was all about intimacy. One moment, you had someone to share your biggest triumph, and fatal flaws with; the next minute, you had to keep them bottled inside.”

“Maybe you expected marriage to be perfect - I guess that's where you and I are different. See, I thought it would be all about making mistakes, but doing it with someone who's there to remind you what you learned along the way.”

“I don't understand why it's a sin if you love something and want to keep it from having to suffer.”

“I know what it's like to start something and have it suddenly grow out of control. And you want to get rid of it, because it's hurting you and everyone else around you, but every time you try to do that, it consumes you again.”

“All any of us wanted, really, was to know that we counted. That someone else's life would not have been as rich without us here.”

“It felt like I'd been living underground, and for a moment, I'd been given this glimpse of the sky. Once you've seen that, how can you go back where you came from?”

“I always hated when my scars started to fade, because as long as I could still see them, I knew why I was hurting.”

“A sacrament--like marriage--means living a life better than your natural instincts, so that you're modeling God. And God never gives up.”

“There were lies we told to save ourselves, and then there were lies we told to rescue others. What counted more, the mistruth, or the greater good?”

“I think there are two different oceans - the one that plays with you in the summer, and the one that gets so mad in the winter.”

“People always say that, when you love someone, nothing in the world matters. But that's not true, is it? You know, and I know, that when you love someone, everything in the world matters a little bit more.”

“I truly believed that the cost of success for us shouldn't be the cost of failure for a good friend.”

“When it comes to memories, the good and the bad never balance.”

“I wondered about the explorers who'd sailed their ships to the end of the world. How terrified they must have been when they risked falling over the edge; how amazed to discover, instead, places they had seen only in their dreams.”

“You know how sometimes, your life is so perfect you’re afraid for the next moment, because it couldn’t possibly be quite as good? That’s what it felt like.”

“A dutiful mother is someone who follows every step her child makes… And a good mother is someone whose child wants to follow her.”

“You can miss a person you've never known.”