Don’t spit down my back and tell me it’s raining.

The way she told it, she was such a criminal even the most God-fearing church ladies got bored of reporting on her; she did the marketing on Sunday, dropped by any church she liked or none at all, was a feminist (which Mrs. Asher sometimes confused with communist), a Democrat (which Mrs. Lincoln pointed out practically had "demon" in the word itself), and, worst of all, a vegetarian (which ruled out any dinner invitations from Mrs. Snow).

I loved her, atom by atom, one burning cell at a time.

Loneliness is holding the one you love When you know you might never hold him again. Even lost in the darkness My heart will find you The soul die at the hand of the one who carries it. If I could find a place to run away Hidden safely, I would be there today. The darkest daylight finds me.

There was no one color that could paint Lena Duchannes. She was a red sweater and a blue sky, a gray wind and a silver sparrow, a black curl escaping from behind her ear.

You can't jump off a cliff when you have already fallen off a bigger one.

The library was home away from home to my mom, and my family. We had spent every Sunday afternoon there since I was a little boy, wandering around the stacks, pulling out every book with a picture of a pirate ship, a knight, a soldier, or an astronaut. My mom used to say, "This is my church, Ethan. This is how we keep the Sabbath holy in our family.