You're not traveling if you already know everything.
The women ranged in age, but they were all old enough to know that in the currency of friendship, empathy is more valuable than accuracy.
I walked across a bridge that doesn't exist. And after that, being scared just didn't seem so important anymore.
Caroline had felt more comfortable thinking of beauty as something separate from her, like a scarf or a coat you could check before going in to a show. She wondered now, however, if she had treated more things as a part of herself rather than an acce...
When Sean died she understood for the first time how completely human beings were dependent upon a suspension of disbelief in order to simply move forward through their days. If that suspension faltered, if you truly understood, even if only for a mo...
TIME WENT ON, life with the children unfolding in its own ecosystem, small plastic toys seeming to grow up from the carpet like mushrooms, clothes falling to the floor like autumn leaves. Every once in a while she would blaze through the house and cl...
She found herself wondering at what point in her life she had ceased to be Gulliver and had become the strings holding him to the ground.
When Marion had been a teenager, she wanted a tattoo. As an oldest child who did mostly what was expected of her, she had been fascinated by the abandon tattoos implied, the willing, blind leap into commitment.
You know," Marion said, "I met a woman once when I was a teenager. I knew she had gone through a lot but she was so strong, so compassionate. I asked her how she could be the way she was, and you know what she told me?" Hadley shook her head. "She sa...
Jack's marketing books had been a part of her life for so long that she had ceased to register their presence, simply moving them from the couch to the coffee table, from the bed to the nightstand. How to Sell Everything to Anybody. Eight Great Habit...
She quickly realized she had an affinity for the older books and their muted scents of past dinners and foreign countries, the tea and chocolate stains coloring the phrases. You could never be certain what you would find in a book that has spent time...
She simply didn't have an interest in men anymore. It wasn't that she didn't like them, she just knew how easily they broke.
A risk is a risk because it's avoidable.
There were moments in life, Marion thought, when you reached back, baton in hand, feeling the runner behind you. Felt the clasp of their fingers resonating through the wood, the release of your hand, which then flew forward, empty, into the space ahe...
Life is beautiful. Some people just remind you of that more than others.
While the egg yolks cooled, he directed the beaters at the egg whites, setting the mixer on high speed that sent small bubbles giggling to the side of the bowl, where a few became many until they were a white froth rising up and then lying down again...
Maybe your mind won't remember what I cooked last week, but your body will.
When a couple came to class together, it meant something else entirely - food as a solution, a diversion, or, occasionally, a playground.
Lillian sometimes wondered why psychologists focused so much on a couple’s life in their bedroom. You could learn everything about a couple just watching their kitchen choreography as they prepared dinner.
Each person's heart breaks in it's own way. Every cure will be different, but there are some things we all need. Before anything else, we need to feel safe.
