The things we respond to at twenty are not necessarily the same things we will respond to at forty and vice versa. This is true in books and also in life

Covers matter. In my experience, a different cover can make you think you're reading an entirely different book.

Liz looks at the tissue box, which is decorated with drawings of snowmen engaged in various holiday activities. One of the snowmen is happily placing a smiling rack of gingerbread men in an oven. Baking gingerbread men, or any cooking for that matter, is probably close to suicide for a snowman, Liz thinks. Why would a snowman voluntarily engage in an activity that would in all likelihood melt him? Can snowmen even eat? Liz glares at the box.

Before I liked to write, I liked to type. I remember visiting my grandmother Adele in Ponce Inlet, Florida, when I was three years old, and she had an IBM electric typewriter.

The scent is sweet and meloncholy. A bit like dying, a bit like falling in love.

I don't think I would have minded you being the keeper of my secrets.

And when she dreams, she dreams of a girl who was lost at sea but one day found the shore.