Immortality is a chancy thing; it cannot be promised or earned. Perhaps it cannot even be identified for what it is.

Light will blind us in time, but what we learn in the dark can see us through.

Notice, notice; let noticing take the place of screaming.

It isn’t hard to find evil in this world. Evil is always more easily imagined than good, somehow.

And girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the side stepping of compromise. They need to know when they say something that they will never back down, ever, ever.

Books fall open, you fall in. When you climb out again, you're a bit larger than you used to be.

She dropped her shyness like a nightgown, and in the liquid glare of sunlight on old boards she held up her hands-as if, in the terror of the upcoming skirmish, she had at last understood that she was beautiful. In her own way.