She hadn't wanted to be loved carefully, only well.

Rejection is a cancer, Edie. It eats away at a person.

But everyone's an expert with the virtue of hindsight . . . .

...She's understood the power of stories. Their magical ability to refill the wounded part of people.

For it is said, you know, that a letter will always seek a reader; that sooner or later, like it or not, words have a way of finding the light, of making their secrets known.

I want to be independent. To meet interesting people. ... I just mean new people with clever things to say. Things I've never heard before. I want to be free. Open to whatever adventure comes along and sweeps me off my feet.

To abandon a child, she had once said to someone, when she thought Cassandra couldn't hear, was an act so cold, so careless, it refused forgiveness.