Laurie Frankel: "We've always been living a fairy tale..."

 "We've always been living a fairy tale... From the moment we met. From the moments before we met. we have this perfect love story. we have this love story that feels like a fairy tale and must be because how else to explain something so magical? But the problem with fairy tales is that they end, and quickly too. The lead-up is everything. Then you get transformation, love, and happily-ever-after all in one breath. That story's nice, but it's not big enough to hold us. There's no room for the hard parts. There's no room for the transformations and the loves that come next and next and next. You know what's even better than happy endings? Happy middles. All the happy with none of the finality. All the happy with room enough to grow."

- from This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel

Aldo Leopold: "The first rule of..."

"The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the pieces."

- Aldo Leopold

Jonathan Safran Foer: "He was a boy..."

"He was a boy still, but no longer a boy. He was a man, but not yet a man. He was caught somewhere between his mother’s last kiss and the first kiss he would give his child."

—Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated