As all mothers know, children travel faster than kisses. The speed of kisses is, in fact, what Doctor Fallow would call a cosmic constant. The speed of children has no limits.

...her cry is a hook and it catches me in the throat.

When I saw him I thought I could curl up inside him and go to sleep and never wake up." "Men are no good for that, Masha. They'll always want you working, when you're not softening their fall into bed at the end of the day.

Remember this when you are queen,” he whispered hoarsely. “I moved the earth and the water for you.

We all live inside the terrible engine of authority, and it grinds and shrieks and burns so that no one will say: lines on maps are silly.

Some girls have to go to college to discover what they are good at; some are born doing what they must without even truly knowing why. I felt a hole in my heart shaped like a dark door I needed to guard.

That’s what happens to friends, eventually. They leave you. It’s practically what they’re for.