How long?" His smile was amazingly sweet. "The longest." For ever?" Sam's lips smiled, but above his grin, his yellow eyes turned sad, as if he knew it was a lie. "Longer.

In a culture defined by shades of gray, I think the absolute black and white choices in dark young adult novels are incredibly satisfying for readers.

I leaned across the table towards the crumb-thrower. "Do that again," I said, loud enough to be heard over the opera singer, Dolly, my mother, and the smell of the breadsticks, "and I will sell your firstborn child to the devil.

And I told you before, I'll sell you any of the thoroughbreds.” “I didn't make any of those thoroughbreds. I didn't make them what they are.” “You made all of them what they are.” I don't look at him. “None of them made me who I am.

When Dove moves up from a canter to a gallop, sometimes the only way I can tell the difference is because her hooves pound a four-time rhythm instead of a three. But when Corr moves into a gallop, it's as if it's a gait that's just been invented, something so much faster than all the others that it should be called something else...Each stride feels like it takes us a mile. We'll run out of island before he runs out of speed. We're giants, on his back.

Nobody ever sees this part,” I said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s pretty.” “So it’s like track six on an album,” Cole said.

Sea does the sweep of his eyes that he does, the one that goes from my head to my toes and back again and makes me feel that he's scanning the depths of my soul and teasing out my motivations and sins. It's worse than confession with Father Mooneyham. At the end of it, he says, "If you help, this will go faster.