What a different woman she would be but for the good people in her life.

Henry Adams said, ‘One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible,’” she said. “What is it we’ve done so right in our lives that has made us five?

They’re to be seen, not owned, like every beautiful thing in this world, including you.

She turned to him, listening as closely as her parents had always listened to her. It was an honor, to be listened to closely, to be heard. One could honor someone without agreeing with them.

I waited. I’ve found if you can leave a silence alone, someone else will fill it.

My father used to say courage isn’t the absence of fear, but rather going forward in the face of it.

Not every book is for every reader.

We didn’t know each other well enough yet to risk mucking around in any real way in each other’s lives.

Linda asked that morning what it was about Charlotte’s Web that Ally particularly liked; maybe it would help to think about that, since it was Ally’s model book. “I like the family that comes together in the barn,” Ally said without hesitation. “I like that they aren’t all the same thing; one is human and one’s a spider and one’s a pig. I like that it has nothing to do with blood relations, and everything to do with love.

The thinnest of silver linings on clouds banishing all light.