They entered Pennsylvania and the road grew smooth for a few hundred yards, like a good intention, before settling back to the old scabby, stippled surface.
There is no sound more peaceful than rain on the roof, if you're safe asleep in someone else's house.
She remembered the feel of wind on summer nights - how it billows through the house and wafts the curtains and smells of tar and roses
Past is past... no it's not! People are always fond of saying that, but what's past is never past; not entirely.
I mean you're given all these lessons for the unimportant things--piano-playing, typing. You're given years and years of lessons in how to balance equations, which Lord knows you will never have to do...
For me, writing was the only way out.
But it’s like time is sort of … balanced. We’re young for such a small fraction of our lives, and yet our youth seems to stretch on forever. Then we’re old for years and years, but time flies by faste...
What if heaven is just a vast consciousness that the dead return to? And their assignment is to report on the experiences they collected during their time on earth?...The spring mornings they woke up...
You think we're a family,' Cody said, turning back. 'You think we're some jolly, situation-comedy family when we're in particles, torn apart, torn all over the place, and our mother was a witch.
The thing about caller ID is, Red said, more or less to himself, it seems a little like cheating. A person should be willing to take his chances, answering the phone.
I’ll just tell you what I’ve learned that has helped me, he said. Shall I? Yes, tell me, she said, growing still. I broke my days into separate moments, he said. See, it’s true I didn’t have any more...
It wasn't what you said, he told her.It was how I felt when you said it.
Houses need humans, Red said. You all should know that. Oh, sure, humans cause wear and tear—scuffed floors and stopped-up toilets and such—but that’s nothing compared to what happens when a house is...
He wished he had inhabited more of his life, used it better, filled it fuller.
At this moment (letting a breeze ripple through her fingers like warm water), Maggie felt that the entire business of time's passing was more than she could bear.
It's closeness that does you in. Never get too close to people, son.
The trouble with discarding bad memories was that evidently the good ones went with them
You know how you just have to touch your child, sometimes? How you drink him in with your eyes and you could stare at him for hours and you marvel at how dear and impossibly perfect he is?
You could really feel physically wounded if someone hurt your feelings badly enough.
There is no true life. Your true life is the one you end up with, whatever it may be. You just do the best you can with what you've got.