"...Next time you're faced with a choice, do the right thing. It hurts everyone less in the long run."

"You can't dwell on what might have been...and it's not fair to condemn him for something he hasn't done."

"Sometimes a little discomfort in the beginning can save a whole lot of pain down the road."

"If you really want things to change, you have to get involved. Little strokes fell big oaks, you know."

"I daydreamed a lot about the sycamore tree, too, which at first I thought was because I was feeling melancholy. But then I remembered how my mother had called the sycamore a testimony yo endurance. It had survuvced being damaged as a sapling. It had grown. Other people thought it was ugly, but I never had. Maybe it was all how you looked at it. Maybe there were things I saw as ugly that other people thought were beautiful."