It makes Faith think of a hammock in their yard, a web of rope that she thought would unravel the first time she leaned back on it, but that managed to support her all the same.

She had never been a pretty crier. She sobbed the way she did everything else - with passion and excess.

Things break all the time. Glass and dishes and fingernails. Cars and contracts and potato chips. You can break a record, a horse, a dollar. You can break the ice. There are coffee breaks and lunch breaks and prison breaks. Day breaks, waves break, voices break. Chains can be broken. So can silence, and fever... promises break. Hearts break.

I always wondered why God was supposed to be a father," she whispers. Fathers always want you to measure up to something. Mothers are the ones who love you unconditionally, don't you think?

As an American I wanted to explore... why are we the only first world country that still has capital punishment? Is it because we're too afraid to really examine the system, or is it because we really truly believe that this is the best way to deter future crime?

The first time she kissed me, I truly thought I'd had an aneurysm - my pulse was thundering so loud and my senses were exploding. This, I remember thinking, the only word I could hold on to in a sea of feelings.

When your existence is hell, death must be heaven.