To consider what other people might say is hardly a good reason to take action or to defer it. You have your own life to live, Iris, and at its end, the only opinion that amounts to anything is that which God bestows

...perhaps charity is the kind of beauty that we comprehend the best because we miss it the most.

I am a forgettable leaf on a tree.

That was such a wonderful time, even in its strangeness and sadness-and life isn't the same now. It's wonderful, but it isn't the same.

I hate to be obvious," added the Scarecrow, "but you'd have saved yourself a heap of trouble if you weren't too cheap to invest in a leash, Dorothy.

It's unbecoming," she agreed. "A perfect word for my new life. Unbecoming. I who have always been unbecoming am becoming un.

So she listened hard. And she began to evolve, because stories work their magic that way. They build conviction and erode conviction in equal measure.