His brothers could tease him about his height or the number of scars he was collecting on his body. He could take the joke when they said he would die having never won a fair wrestling match. But the topic of Bettin still smarted too much. He'd imagined being with her always. Now when he closed his eyes, he had trouble imagining anything else.

My ma says You can't unspill a stew." "She also says Undoing a wrong is greater than doing a right." "You know, Ma is very good at saying two things at once.

The rewrites are a struggle right now. Sometimes I wish writing a book could just be easy for me at last. But when I think about it practically, I am glad it's a struggle. I am (as usual) attempting to write a book that's too hard for me. I'm telling a story I'm not smart enough to tell. The risk of failure is huge. But I prefer it this way. I'm forced to learn, forced to smarten myself up, forced to wrestle. And if it works, then I'll have written something that is better than I am.

The to Cathal was battered and only one wagon wide, with swells of hard earth where mud had frozen during cold ad rainy seasons. Enna tripped often, and cursed each time she tripped, until Dasha said, "Enna, you might watch your language." Enna grimaced. "I was. You should hear my thoughts.

Time is a wind that keeps blowing in my face and mumbling words that don't make sense.

Life is short, so live extra lives. Read books.

I wonder if everyone who faces death hurts like this. It's as though for the first time I realize how much just being alive makes my body ache. But I don't want that ache to stop.