In books, you always know what's coming next. There are no surprises.

Any highway . . . they all take you to the same place, don't they?

She suddenly remembered studying the brain in science class- how a steel rod pierced a man's skull, and he opened his mouth to speak Portuguese, a language he'd never studied. Maybe it would be like this, now, for Josie. Maybe her native tongue, from here on in, would be a string of lies.

All writers start with a layer of truth, don't they? If not, their stories would be nothing but spools of cotton candy, a fleeting taste wrapped around nothing but air.

Suddenly this is all too hard. I am tired of putting up walls. I want someone with the strength - and the honesty - to break them down.

What if instead of focusing on what you don't have, you concentrate on what you've got?

Until this moment, I had not realized that someone could break your heart twice, along the very same fault lines.