Hunger, she often tells me, has nothing to do with the belly and everything to do with the mind. What Mary really runs isn't a bakery, but a community.

What's worse ...? The devil you don't know ... or the devil you do?

There is a reason the word belonging has a synonym for want at its center; it is the human condition.

How do you know that you are not part of a book? That someone's not reading your story right now?

And in general, the residents of the town wondered why they all felt hollow just beneath the throat, the result of missing something they had never been able to name in the first place.

Be kind to others before you take care of yourself; make whoever you're with feel like they matter.

Everyone deserves a happy ending.