Some people are exactly what they present to the world.

GRIEF IS A sea made of your own tears. Salty swells cover the dark depths you must swim at your own pace. It takes time to build stamina. Some days, my arms sliced through the water, and I felt things would be okay, the shore wasn’t so far off. Then one memory, one moment would nearly drown me, and I’d be back to the beginning, fighting to stay above the waves, exhausted, sinking in my own sorrow.

Books and ideas are like blood; they need to circulate, and they keep us alive.

Be grateful for what people tell you, when they’re ready to talk. Try to accept their limits, and understand that their limits usually have nothing to do with you.

GRIEF IS A sea made of your own tears. Salty swells cover the dark depths you must swim at your own pace. It takes time to build stamina. Some days, my arms sliced through the water, and I felt things would be okay, the shore wasn’t so far off.

Love isn’t rationed. Ellie can care about all of you.

Sometimes, when people have gone through tough times, or been betrayed, the only way for them to survive is to cut off the person who hurt them.

Some days, my arms sliced through the water, and I felt things would be okay, the shore wasn’t so far off. Then one memory, one moment would nearly drown me, and I’d be back to the beginning, fighting to stay above the waves, exhausted, sinking in my own sorrow.

Like book covers, some leather, some cloth, each Parisian door led to an unexpected world.

As a reader, she was an omnivore, devouring science, math, history, plays, and poetry. Her bookshelves ran over, so her vanity table was a mixture of pink blush and Dorothy Parker, mascara and Montaigne. Her armoire held Horace and high heels, stockings and Steinbeck. Her love of books and her love for me imbued my being like the amber scent of Shalimar she dabbed behind our ears.