A few months ago, presented with the knowledge that life wasn’t going to be what I’d planned, I wanted to check out, close the book. But now, it’s like suddenly I’ve found a few more pages. And it feels like, against all likelihood, the last chapter might be the best one of all. The last chapter, in fact might be something great.

You might start something on a lie, or finish it on a lie, but that doesn’t mean that everything in the middle isn’t the truth.

What’s the point in having a mentally ill aunt if she can’t buy you a Nerf Super Soaker Electrostorm Blaster?

Instead she was a spectator – a strange woman in a bathrobe, watching through the window. But she was going to get her life back. That was exactly what she’d come to Pleasant Court to do.

By the time I get out of the shower, Tom is in bed. At first I think he is asleep, but as soon as I crawl in beside him, his eyes open. “How are you going to live without me?” he says. We both chuckle, even as a tear slides from the corner of Tom’s eye. “I won’t,” I say, and then he reaches for me and we don’t talk anymore.

People underestimate the role fate plays in our lives.

Angry is just a pen name for sad,” Janet had explained. “In my experience, nine times out of ten if you are kind to the angry person, you will calm them down and find out what is really going on with them.

Some people jumped in and tried to save someone who was in trouble; others did anything they could to save themselves.

Life is too short not to kiss.

I never had a good answer to Mom’s question. ‘If I don’t remember, will I have been here at all?’ But maybe her question was flawed. Maybe it doesn’t matter what you remember. Maybe if someone else remembers and speaks your name, you were here.