Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.

Who I am, and what I am capable of doing has always managed to surprise me.

In the custom of mourning, the fabric of the night had been ripped, revealing a star at each tiny tear.

There had been so many easy words between them that Daniel was guilty of nodding every now and then and tuning out the excess. He hadn't known, at the time, that he should have been hoarding these, like bits of sea glass hidden in the pocket of a winter coat to remind him that once it had been summer.

Choices are funny things-ask a native tribe that's eaten grubs and roots forever if they're unhappy, and they'll shrug. But give them filet mignon and truffle sauce and then ask them to go back to living off the land, and they will always be thinking of that gourmet meal. If you don't know there's an alternative, you can't miss it.

I would figure out, later, how to explain to my boss that, for me, Delia will never be a story, but a happy ending.

We could all be lucky. We could all be what we want to be, instead of who someone else told us to be.