Saying my story makes me want to change it, make it sound pretty the way I do with the stories I tell the workers. I'd like it to have a beginning as grand as a ball and an ending in a whisper, like a mother tucking in a child for sleep.

He nodded. "And if I don't make you feel like the most beautiful woman in the world every day of your life, then I don't deserve to be near you.

Poor gosling. It hurts to be lost. And worse to be home with no kind of homecoming...I'll be lucky if I can do as well as you when all this's done, just a bit out of breath, a bit bruised and scratched, a bit wiser and sadder for it all.

Her nightmare clung to her like the smell of smoke to cloth.

Just like the old adage--what you dislike most in other people is what you dislike the most in yourself--

Yes, we'll yell, 'Help, help us, goose girl, and bring the terrifying legion of warrior geese'.

And Isi always listened, never told Enna she had been foolish, never said hollow things like 'You'll be all right.' . . . Isi saw Enna's struggle and her sadness, and she understood.