You cannot hold onto anything that wants to go. Do you understand what I'm sayin'? You just got to love it while you got it, and that's that.

More from Because of Winn-Dixie

• Accept loss forever
• A change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves.
• A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.
• A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty Is worth a whole eternity in bondage.
• Advice is like snow; the softer it falls the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.
• A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud.