It's one thing to keep secrets. It's quite another to lie.

He’s harmless, poor thing. That’s what everyone said. It was true, but who cares? Lots of people are harmless, but that doesn’t mean I have to like them.

Now that’s true poetic irony. I rush into battle to defend the fair name of Rose Larkin, and what does she do but fetch Robert to stop me.

Father’s silence is not merely the absence of sound. It’s a creature with a life of its own. It chokes you. It pinches you small as a grain of rice. It twists in your gut like a worm. Silence clawed at my throat. It left a taste of burnt matches.

I was asking about lust, wasnʼt I? I was fairly certain of it. But isnʼt love supposed to come before lust? It does in the dictionary.

You don’t mind when he stares at you.” Cecil jerked his head toward Eldric. "He doesn’t stare,” I said. “He looks.

The beach has a language of its own, with its undulating ribbons of silt, the imponderable hieroglyphs of bird tracks. The receding waves catch on innumerable holes in the sand. Bubbles form and fade. A new language, with a new alphabet.