We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds.

No one had ever said anything like that to Evie. Her parents always wanted to advise or instruct or command. They were good people, but they needed the world to bend to them, to fit into their order of things. Evie had never really quite fit, and when she tried, she’d just pop back out, like a doll squeezed into a too-small box.

People see what they want to see when they need to.

What do you feel? I’ve never been asked this question once. None of us has. We aren’t supposed to feel. We’re British.

Goodbye," I whisper at last, when it no longer matters and there is no one to hear it but the window.

I had a friend who said, "You don't have an internal critic. You have an internal sadist."

I told myself it was the snow—she couldn’t possibly get to Philadelphia on the roads. I told myself a hundred lies. Children do that. It’s amazing the sorts of things you’ll make yourself believe.