Twice

I want, and you want, and God does what God wants.

There are years you think about for moments, and moments you think about for years.

Suspicion and belief can’t share the same bed.

Secrecy is a loan against your better judgment. You pay the interest in regret.

Alfie, if you keep getting second chances, you won’t learn a damn thing.

Some of the biggest things in life happen over the smallest turns in the day.

What we yearn for, deep down, is a heart that will embrace us AFTER we make a fool of ourselves.

We invent all kinds of theories about how our hearts get broken, when we're the ones who drop them on the floor.

When you are lonely and you suddenly find a friend, it fills up your world.

And what you tell yourself long enough becomes, like new paint on an old wall, the only color you see.

I’ve noticed something about dying, Boss. When you come into this world, you have all these people who want to take care of you, and you don’t know any of them. Then, when you’re leaving this world, you have all these people you do know, but few of them want to be bothered.

I blinked back tears. I looked up into Lallu's small, steady eyes, and understood another Truth About True Love: it makes you feel like you belong someplace.

Instead, I hid my flaws, afraid they would cost me her affection. That would prove to be a mistake, and my first lesson in The Truth About Love: what we yearn for, deep down, is a heart that will embrace us after we make a fool of ourselves.

Because The Truth About True Love is that it can wait a lifetime. Or two.

That would prove to be a mistake, and my first lesson in The Truth About True Love: what we yearn for, deep down, is a heart that will embrace us after we make a fool of ourselves.

When we’re young, we want to satisfy every desire. When we’re old, our greatest desire is to not die alone.

What is it about time and love that turns us from red with desire to pale with familiarity?

You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending. —C. S. LEWIS

A boy may not do everything for his mother. But he’ll do anything for her memory.

A split had formed in my heart. And here is another Truth About True Love: only a whole heart can support it.

we entered the hospital as expectant parents and we left as something else, unexpectant, if that’s a word, not just of a child but, in time, of a certain happiness. We seemed to cross into a new, barren country, a gray place where dreams were mostly lost causes.

When was your first time?” Yaya asked me. “Mom’s last day.” “You saw that twice?” “Yes.” She nodded and looked to the window. “Makes sense. It’s usually a heartbreak that starts it. You want so badly to undo something. And then . . . it just happens.

Losing it left a hole inside me forever. But in that hospital room I realized, even if I could never receive such love again, I hadn't lost the ability to give it. To shower you with it from afar.

At some point, you get tired of reliving the past. You’re ready for what comes next.

When you realize you are about to lose a parent, you suddenly want to know everything, say everything, share every little detail you omitted during the years when you were taking them for granted.

The way you don’t give up until you’ve figured it out.

Nothing in this world happens without God, and I am humbled more and more by the grace and blessings God has given me in this life.

The Truth About True Love is that it can wait a lifetime. Or two.

I’ve learned—after all this time—is that love is indeed the only rational act.

You cannot get someone to love you twice—