Words, for all they were flimsy and invisible, had great strength. They could be fortified as a castle wall and sharp as a foil. They could bite, slap, shock, wound. But unlike deeds, words couldn't really help you. No promise ever rescued a person; it was the carrying-through of it that brought about salvation.

There is no one truth. There’s only what happened, based on how you perceive 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.

You can't be real," Delilah murmurs. "Says who?" I ask. "Did you really think that a story exists only when you're reading it?

You can't pay a landlord in dogma.

Imagine if you were the positive pole of a magnet, and you were told that under no circumstances were you allowed to touch that negative pole that was sucking you in like a black hole. Or if you crawled out of the desert and found a woman standing with a pitcher of ice water, but she held it out of your reach. Imagine jumping off a building, and then being told not to fall. That's what it feels like to want a drink.

Often, when the last page is turned, it will haunt you.