I tell you this as a cautionary tale: beware of getting what you want. It's bound to disappoint you.

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.

True love can break the most powerful curse

Forgiveness is spiritual. Punishment is legal," Leo says. "They're not mutually exclusive.

Safety is relative. You can be so close to shore that you can practically feel it under your feet, when you suddenly find yourself breaking apart on the rocks.

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.

Things that break - be they bones, hearts, or promises - can be put back together but will never really be whole.