There was one thing my murderer didn't understand; he didn't understand how much a father could love his child.

It's hard, because when you talk about process or your characters ruling your narrative, it sounds like you have no control, but obviously you're ultimately the author, so you do have control.

Learn a language of another country and then you can go to that country: a place where the problems of your family will not follow. A language they do not speak.

He had a moment of clarity about how life should be lived: not as a child or as a woman. They were the two worst things to be.

If I had but an hour of love,if that be all that is given me,an hour of love upon this earth,I would give my love to thee.

Ruth hadn't talked to my sister since before my death, and then it was only to excuse herself in the hallway at school. But she'd seen Lindsey walking home with Samuel and seen her smile with him. She watched as my sister said yes to pancakes and no to everything else. She had tried to imagine herself being my sister as she had spent time imagining being me.

My father had not been outside the house except to drive back and forth to work or sit out in the backyard, for months, nor had he seen his neighbors. Now he looked at them, from face to face, until he realized I had been loved by people he didn't even recognize. His heart filled up, warm again as it had not been in what seemed so long to him- save small forgotten moments with Buckley, the accidents of love that happened with his son. ~pgs 209-210; Buckley, Lindsey and Jack on Susie