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.

The adults don't know what's happening on the kids' universe and the kids don't know what's happening on the adults' universe

I think we are bound to, and by, nature. We may want to deny this connection and try to believe we control the external world, but every time there's a snowstorm or drought, we know our fate is tied to the world around us

When the cold comes to New England it arrives in sheets of sleet and ice. In December, the wind wraps itself around bare trees and twists in between husbands and wives asleep in their beds. It shakes the shingles from the roofs and sifts through cracks in the plaster. The only green things left are the holly bushes and the old boxwood hedges in the village, and these are often painted white with snow. Chipmunks and weasels come to nest in basements and barns; owls find their way into attics. At night,the dark is blue and bluer still, as sapphire of night.

I must keep my head and not give in to desire, for desire is what causes women to drown.

It was as though I had one map inside my head and it led to the man who was waiting for me. Someone who was alone - maybe even more alone - than I was.

What was a rose but the living proof of desire, the single best evidence of human longing and earthly devotion. but desire could be twisted,after all, and Jealousy was the name of the rose that did well in arid souls.