He had a smug smile on his lips like he knew, even in his sleep, that women all around him were dying from love because he'd taken their hearts and hidden them where they'd never find them.

Don't let anyone see your vulnerable spots. Once they knew how to hurt you, they would do it again and again.

If we measured life in the things that almost happened, we wouldn't get anywhere.

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.

You are who you are, whether you like it or not, so why not like it?

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

Like magic, she felt him getting nearer, felt it like a pull in the pit of her stomach. It felt like hunger but deeper, heavier. Like the best kind of expectation. Ice cream expectation. Chocolate expectation.