Love that costs nothing is not worth much, and I have found that the reverse is also true: the things you pay the most for turn out to be the things you’d have paid anything for.

Chapter 9 — The Most Embarrassing Man Alive

Now, I don’t want to give the impression it was all tender moments and quiet lessons, because there was a stretch of years — roughly ages twelve through fifteen, times three, which is a lot of years — when I was, in the unanimous and frequently stated opinion of my daughters, the most embarrassing man alive.

I embarrassed them by existing in public.

I embarrassed them by singing in the car, by talking to their teachers, by the way I dressed, by the truck I drove, by waving too enthusiastically at pickup.

I embarrassed Frankie by knowing the words to the wrong songs and Tess by asking her friends earnest questions and Rosie simply by being visible within a hundred yards of anyone she wanted to impress.