She smiled at me, and I never forgot it. Or more accurately, I always remembered it.

A miracle happened. Right there and then, in amongst the lunchtime diners and tourists, with the sweeping views of San Francisco Bay outside the window and the sea lions making a racket on the wharf...

Because you can't be as in love as we were and not have it invade your bone marrow. Our kind of love can go into remission, but it's always waiting to return. Like the world's sweetest cancer.

Sometimes, when we least expect it, we catch a glimpse of someone, a face, perhaps only a smile, and our heart latches on and will not let go. It may not be love at first, but soon and for always.

I do not have silver nor gold to give you, but I have a heart of gold to keep you.

I often cry, not from sadness, from the joy of the miraculous beauty of life.

Arianna, hold on! I'm coming! I yell as I watch the life leave her eyes and she falls to the ground. NO! I scream as my eyes fly open.

Being with boys is more dangerous for me than killing a cricket or having a bird fly into the house.

I know I'm not going to be in your head all the time. But once you know me, I'll be forever in your heart.

There are a hundred things she has tried to chase away the things she won't remember and that she can't even let herself think about because that's when the birds scream and the worms crawl and...

When he asked if he was mine, tears in his eyes, I think he knew what he would do, what he would have to do, and he was mourning us. He was mourning us the whole time.

But when Anthony kissed her, she felt as if she were losing her mind. And when he kissed her twice, she wasn't even sure if she wanted it back!

I went into the bathroom and caught sight of my reflection in the mirror over the sink. All my years looked back at me, and I could feel their weight, pressing down on my shoulders. I ran the shower...

But family life sometimes had a vortex, like weather. It could be like a tornado in a quiet zigzag: get close enough and you might see within it a spinning eighteen-wheeler and a woman.

I'm letting this Rebecca mystery make my mind run wild. Actually, my whole life feels like it's running wild whereas only weeks before it was calm and uneventful. I'm standing on a high-rise ledge and...

On the other couch a woman sits with a young boy looking through a picture book about Babar the Elephant. When I find a magazine and I lean back to start reading it, I can see the woman watching me...

You might, without my crediting it, fall deeply in love and forever, with some warped hunchback whelped in the gutter. I should equally stop you from taking him.

She was a keen observer, a precise user of language, sharp-tongued and funny. She could stir your emotions. Yes, really, that's what she was so good at - stirring people's emotions, moving you. And...