She knew what it felt like to stand in front of someone and ask them to love you, to try to pull them to you by the sheer force of your desire, a force so strong it felt as though you were going to die from it.

Adolescence is like having only enough light to see the step directly in front of you.

When your cup is empty, you do not mourn what is gone. Because if you do, you will miss the opportunity to fill it again.

Love always hurts. That’s one thing I know you know. But it’s worth it. That’s what you don’t know. Yet.

When she looked in the mirror these days, she saw someone she didn't recognize...She saw an old woman trying to be beautiful, her skin dry and her wrinkles like cracks. She looked like a very well-dressed winter apple.

Why were girls in such a hurry to grow up? Agatha would never understand. Childhood was magical. Leaving it behind was a magnificent loss.

She'd assumed she'd be married and have kids by this age, that she would be grooming her own daughter for this, as her friends were doing. She wanted it so much she would dream about it sometimes, and then she would wake up with the skin at her wrists and neck red from the scratchy lace of the wedding gown she'd dreamed of wearing. But she'd never felt anything for the men she'd dated, nothing beyond her own desperation. And her desire to marry wasn't strong enough, would never be strong enough, to allow her to marry a man she didn't love.