That’s family in a nutshell. You take them as they are, and you love them, no matter what.

Freedom to make mistakes, freedom to live life messily.

The most basic elements of our life – our birth and our death – are out of our control. People spend a lifetime trying to control these things but it’s impossible.

You can never recover from losing a person you love, but you can find a way to let it be part of your life rather than letting it take over every part of you.

She loves being an American, but being an American overseas is quite a different thing. Edie was able to see herself, and her country, through other people’s eyes—through the eyes of aid workers from Europe and Asia, through the eyes of the people they were trying to help. She knows that Americans are often viewed as arrogant and frivolous, clueless about their own country, and she hates that this is true.

The most basic elements of our life—our birth and our death—are out of our control. People spend a lifetime trying to control these things but it’s impossible.

Despite the company of friendship we still have ourselves to reckon with at the end of the day.

You can never recover from losing a person you love, but you can find a way to let it be part of your life rather than letting it take over every part of you