You can be betrayed in your sleep. The whole world can tilt while you're dreaming of butterflies.

This was what it meant to be human, to know that time moved and all things changed.

My darling girl, when are you going to realize that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage." - Aunt Frances

I thought you were supposed to be the champion of your people,' I said. I live because I need to do that. For anyone who is left.' Don't you see? No one will be left. Protect them now or there will be no one to protect!' This is a battle that goes on and on. It never ends. You're too young to understand. No! You're too much of a coward to fight.' I was sick of lies and secrets and of battles so old we had to erase who we were to fight back. And still we lost. Still we were tied to posts.

I saw the end of his life right there in that single moment. His pride, his decency, his secrets, his death.

I read Betty Smith's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," all of Shirley Jackson's books, which I loved.

She didn't like being twelve. It felt like someplace between who she'd been and who she was about to be. It felt like no place at all.