I stare at the pile of discarded remnants and think of my mother. Did she touch that pillar there? Does her scent still linger in a fragment of glass or a splinter of wood? A terrible emptiness settles into my chest. No matter how much I go about living, there are always small reminders that make the loss fresh again.

You must remember, my dear lady, the most important rule of any successful illusion: First, the people must want to believe in it.

So much of the literature we had to read for high school English class was filled with victimized, tragic, symbolic women who spurred the plot forward with their inevitable shunning/death/shunning-followed-by-pregnancy-followed-by-death timelines.

People have a habit of inventing fictions they will believe wholeheartedly in order to ignore the truth they cannot accept.

I am for hockey. I find I should like to hit something with a stick. -Gemma Doyle Trilogy

Gemma~Was he really looking at me that way? Kartik~What way? Gemma~Like a piece of ripe fruit? Katrik~You'd best be on your guard with him.

He took comfort in the neon signs, the wild strands of jazz creeping out of clubs whenever happy swells of people pushed through the doors in their finery.