People are capable of great, great change during the span of one lifetime. And women even more than men. - Gabrielle Zevin

Sadie, do you see this? This is a persimmon tree! This is my favorite fruit. Marx picked a fat orange persimmon from the tree, and he sat down on the now termite-free wooden deck, and he ate it, juice running down his chin. Can you believe our luck? Max said. We bought a house with a tree that has my actual favorite fruit!

Sam used to say that Marx was the most fortunate person he had ever met - he was lucky with lovers, in business, in looks, in life. But the longer Sadie knew Marx, the more she thought Sam hadn't truly understood the nature of Marx's good fortune. Marx was fortunate because he saw everything as if it were a fortuitous bounty. It was impossible to know - were persimmons his favorite fruit, or had they just now become his favorite fruit because there they were, growing in his own backyard? He had certainly never mentioned persimmons before.

You love being Ruby's mother, but loving Ruby does not stop you from wanting things for yourself.

For most of his life, Sam had found it difficult to say I Love You. It was superior, he believed, to show love those one loved. But now, it seemed like one of the easiest things in the world Sam could do. Why wouldn't you tell someone you loved them? Once you loved someone, you repeated it until they were tired of hearing it. You said it until it ceased to have meaning. Why not? Of course, you goddamn did.