Hope can be bruised and battered. It can be forced underground and even rendered unconscious, but hope cannot be killed.

What he's really saying is: Please be a human being. With a life so full of rules and regiments, it's so easy to forget that's what they are. She knows—she sees—how often compassion takes a back seat to expediency.

Wars are often waged not because of what we believe, but because of the things we want others to believe.

For standing between Cody and his pain is my obligation, and standing between my uncle and his pain is my rent, but the pain I coax from Bronte is my joy

Once in a while our school has half days, and the teachers spend the afternoon 'in service,' which I think must be a group therapy for having to deal with us.

It holds no fear for her now, because the shark has been tamed by the soul of a boy. No--the soul of a man.

Dead kids are put on pedestals, but mentally ill kids get hidden under the rug.