"Love could be set in motion quickly, but true love needed time to grow into something strong and enduring. Love was, above all, about commitment and dedication and a belief that spending years with a certain person would create something greater than the sum of what the two could accomplish separately. Only time, however, could show whether you'd been accurate in your judgment."

“When you chase a dream, you learn about yourself. You learn your capabilities and limitations, and the value of hard work and persistence.”

“So many people these days, it seemed, believed that these things could come only from work, not from parenting, and many people believed that having children had nothing to do with raising them.”

“A truth emerges in any long marriage, and the truth is this: Our spouses sometimes know us better than we even know ourselves.”

“My mom used to tell me that whatever you do, marry someone who loves you more than you love him.”

“It was a life, she eventually concluded, that had been lived in the middle ground, where contentment and love were found in the smallest details of people's lives. It was a life of dignity and honor, not without sorrows yet fulfilling in a way that few experiences ever were. She knew Tuck understood that more than anyone.”

“...once she becomes a teenager...well, sometimes there's nothing you can do. With or without you, in the end, children grow up to become the people they were meant to be.”