I wonder if you've got a minute." I have many minutes, all of them used toward a common purpose.

That's why we read fiction, isn't it? To remind us that whatever we suffer, we're not the only ones?

When it's all over, you're remembered for what you did, not what you said you were going to do.

There are so many ways a family can unravel. All it takes is a tiny slash of selfishness, a rip of greed, a puncture of bad luck. And yet, woven tightly, family can be the strongest bond imaginable.

Accidents did not just happen. From time to time they were carefully plotted, calculated, and arranged to one’s advantage-all, of course, under the cloak of happenstance.

There's a problem with wounded birds, Cassie," Connor said. "Either they fly away from you one day, or else they never get better. They stay hurt no matter what you do.

Risk always looks different when you're beating the system than when you've been beaten.