Life is a perpetual yesterday for us.

Please don't let Daddy die Susie," he whispered. "I need him.

I was in the air around him. I was in the cold mornings he had now. I was in the quiet time he spent alone. I was the girl he had chosen to kiss. He wanted, somehow to set me free. -Susie Salmon

She didn't even have to smile, and she rarely did outside her house--it was the eyes, her dancer's carriage, the way she seemed to deliberate over the smallest movement of her body.

Those who say they would rather fight to the death than be raped are fools. I would rather be raped a thousand times. You do what you have to.

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.

I left my mark on that man.