And because love, real love, is not so easily shed.

A first lesson in the fragility of love and the preternatural cowardice of men. And out of this disillusionment and turmoil sprang Beli's first adult oath, one that would follow her into adulthood, to the States and beyond. I will not serve.

She would be a new person, she vowed. They said no matter how far a mule travels it can never come back a horse, but she would show them all.

Nothing more exhilarating ... than saving yourself by the simple act of waking.

Love was a rare thing, easily confused with a million other things, and if anybody knew this to be true it was him.

I think men spend so much time passing for being men.

The U.S. that I had imagined was nowhere near as crazy and as incredibly damaging and brutal and indifferent as the U.S. that we're currently living in. I thought I was being transgressive, apocalyptic, an out-there person. And then reality lapped me, it just lapped me.