[Visiting Simon's grave.] I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice, not because of his voice or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death but because he is the reason I believe in God. What faith I have, I owe it to Simon Birch, a boy I grew up with in Gravestown, Maine.

[At the birth scene of Simon Birch.] Simon Birch was the smallest delivery ever recorded in the history of Gravestown Memorial Hospital.

Simon's father owned the Birch Granite Company. Mr. Birch was a big believer in the rock and just about everything in their house was made from granite, including Mr. Birch.

When someone you love dies, you don't lose them all at once. You lose them in pieces over time, like how the mail stops coming. What I remember most to this day was my mother's scent and how I hated it when it began to disappear. First from her closets and drawers, then from her dresses that she had sewed herself and finally, from her bedsheets and pillowcases.

Time is a monster that cannot be reasoned with. It responds like a snail to our impatience...then it races like a gazelle when you can't catch your breath.