Sometimes Holly seemed like she wasn't paying attention, and other times she was gone when I went looking for her. That was when she went to a part of heaven we didn't share. I missed her then, but it was and odd sort of missing because by then I knew the meaning of forever. I could not have what I wanted most: Mr. Harvey dead and me living. Heaven wasn't perfect. But I came to believe that if I watched closely, and desired, I might change the lives of those I loved on Earth.

The earth has a mouth?” Buckley asked. A big round mouth but with no lips,” my father said. Jack,” my mother said, laughing, “stop it. Do you know I caught him outside growling at the snapdragons?

A lot of people ask questions that they don't want to answer themselves, and if we're honest about the intimacy that we have with our parents, you wish them the best and you wish them the worst more than anybody else in the world. I think everyone has had a moment in their life where they wished a parent ill, and I think it's perhaps a very romantic idea that that doesn't happen.

You could not be filled with hate and be beautiful. Like any other girl, I wanted to be beautiful. But I was filled with hate.

Every day a question mark.

The alcohol had the effect of making the black cloth blacker. This amused her; she had noted in her journal: "booze affects material as it does people.

I have always felt extremely weird. But I am very happy with my weirdnesses, and I want other people to be very happy with theirs.