"Sometimes they would sit in the parlor together, both reading " in entirely separate worlds, to be sure, but joined somehow. When this happened, other people in the family couldn't bring themselves to disturb them. All that could be heard in the parlor was the sound of pages, turning."

"I only had access to him when we were together in the library, and I loved them both -the library and my father- equally and without question."

"Anyway, the sort of love that will not wait is probably best to pass by."

"I always felt and still feel that fairy tales have an emotional truth that is so deep that there are few things that really rival them."

"It had made her too helpless, because that's what love did. There was no way around it and no way to fight it. Now if she lost, she lost everything."

"Any institution becomes a community - whether it's a high school or a boarding school or a publishing company or a small town where everybody knows certain things about people."

"Crying wasn't like riding a bike. Give it up, and you quickly forget how it's done."

"I think secrets often come out. I spoke to a friend who is a therapist and I asked her if there were people who came to her and admitted to doing horrible things and she said, 'More than you know.'"

"Our rest is formed by our waking life and our waking life is formed by our sorrows."

"The sky is already purple; the first few stars have appeared, suddenly, as if someone had thrown a handful of silver across the edge of the world."

"When Juliet came flying down the hallway, Stella didn't recognize her friend. Juliet hadn't bothered with makeup; she was wearing a nightgown underneath her raincoat and had on plastic flip-flops. This was the way loved walked in, barely dressed, confused, panic-stricken, overcome, not caring what anyone thought or what they believed."

"We are only an instant, that's true. But we are eternal."

"Pride is a funny thing it can make what is truly worthless appear to be a treasure."

"Such was the case with most unhappy students; they avoided even one another, so intent on their own unhappiness they failed to notice the other lost souls around them."

"They say that dogs may dream, and when Topsy was old, his feet would move in his sleep. With his eyes closed he would often make a noise that sounded quite human, as if greeting someone in his dreams. At first it seemed that he believed Sara would return, but as the years went by I understood that his loyalty asked for no reward, and that love comes in unexpected forms. His wish was small, as hers had been -- merely to be beside her. As for me, I already knew I would never get what I wanted."

"Perhaps it is possible to discover more in silence than in speech. Or perhaps it is only that those who are silent among us learn to listen."

"I knew the power of a single wish, after all. Invisible and inevitable, like a butterfly that beats its wings in one corner of the globe and with that single action changes the weather halfway across the world."

"She understood love. What destroys you saves you, she had told me."

"But what we are given is taken as well, so that we know God's glory comes to us from His will alone."