Like putting a name to my problems would solve anything

For an entire populace, change, growth, and spontaneity were dangerous. Acting upon a personal desire, whispering a hidden longing, revealing your true feelings - all the human actions we think of as essential to a character - had be censored by the self lest they be punished by the state.

In my experience, ghosts are made up only of the living, people you know are out there but are forever out of range

Orphans are the only ones who get to choose their fathers, and they love them twice as much.

The darkness inside your head is something your imagination fills with stories that have nothing to do with the real darkness around you.

I know it really sounds cheesy, but I did feel a duty to try to tell the stories of people who couldn't speak for themselves.

The next day, she was silent. For breakfast, she murdered an onion and served it raw.