I've found in my own life that if my writing isn't going well, not much else will. It is the one constant, the key to everything else.

You didn't have to take a punch for me, you know,' he said. 'I'm a lover, not a fighter.' 'You're a freak is what you are,' I said.

I always wrote about girls that went to the beach and had that summer that changed everything. So I was interested in what it would be like to live in a tourist town where everyone has these life changing experiences, but your whole life is there.

It seemed like this day could go in so many directions, like a spiderweb shooting out toward endless possibilities.

I hoped that Grace would be a little bit of the best of all of us: Scarlett's spirit, and my mother's strength, Marion's determination, and Michael's sly humor. I wasn't sure what I could give, not just yet. But I would know when I told her about the comet, years from now, I would know. And I would lean close to her ear, saying the words no one else could hear, explaining it all. The language of solace and comets, and the girls we all become, in the end.

It was hard to remember what the yard had looked like even twelve hours before, undisturbed and pristine. Like it takes so little to change something, but to make you forget the way it once was, as well.

Like life isn't complicated enough. You should at least be able to follow the signs.