Sometimes the things we really want are right in front of us. We just don't see them.

It's easy to look back and see it, and it's easy to give the advice. But the sad fact is, most people don't look beneath the surface until it's too late.

Holly, I understand that you are upset because Gemma pulled down your ants, but why did you think pouring motor oil inside her backpack is the way to solve the problem?

Some of us get dipped in flat, some in satin, some in gloss...." He turned to me. "But every once in a while, you find someone who's iridescent, and when you do, nothing will ever compare.

And now I was seeing that there was something really cool about that family. All of them. They were just...real. And who were we? There was something spinning wickedly out of control inside this house. It was like seeing inside the Baker's world had opened up windows into our own, and the view was not a pretty one. Where had all this stuff come from? And why hadn't I ever seen it before.

I fell asleep that night thinking about the kiss that might have been. What did a kiss feel like, anyway? Somehow I knew it wouldn’t be like the one I got from Mom or Dad at bedtime. The same species, maybe, but a radically different beast, to be sure. Like a wolf and a whippet – only science would put them on the same tree.

A painting is more than the sum of its parts