Some people don't know how to fall in love, like not knowing how to swim. They panic first when they jump in. Then they figure it out.

Her friendship . . . still existed, as if it was a living, breathing thing, something that came to life the moment it happened and didn't just go away because they no longer acknowledged it.

She was so Southern that she cried tears that came straight from the Mississippi, and she always smelled faintly of cottonwood and peaches.

Whenever I would get too nosy as a child, my grandmother would say, "When you learn someone else's secret, your own secrets aren't safe. Dig up one, release them all.

There was a mood of magic and frenzy to the room. Crystalline swirls of sugar and flour still lingered in the air like kite tails. And then there was the smell-the smell of hope, the kind of smell that brought people home.

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

There was a certain power beautiful mothers held over their less beautiful daughters.