"I wanted to meet the monster. Why go down if you can go up?"

"I'd sleep outside naked in the blizzard,for you."

"Possibilities...in the closet...itching...to break out...but afraid of...the fallout."

"Have you everhad so much to saythat your mouth closed up tightstruggling to harnessthe nuclear forcecoalescing within your words?Have you everhad so many thoughtschurning inside you that you didn'tdare let them escapein case they blew you wide open?Have you everbeen so angry that youcouldn't look in the mirrorfor fear of finding the face of evilglaring back at you?"

"Have you ever had so many thoughts churning inside that you didn't dare let them escape, in case they blew you wide open?"

"Why are we here? Is there, really, some intelligent design? Why do we cry for someone who leaves us, if there's some Grand Pearly Gate in the sky? Why worry about how we build our lives if the ultimate ending for all is death, a single breath away?"

"Empty is the perfect state of being. Nothing inside to anchor you. Nothing inside to chain you down, keep you from living your dreams. Empty, almost weightless, you are an eyelash afloat on a blink of breeze. You can rise about tension and worry, loosed from the grip of gravity. Adrift in thermal lift, you ride the wing of freedom and soar. Empty, you are Eve in Eden. Empty, you are what you were meant to be."

"I thought he'd run if he knew. Instead, he offered help, not that I believed he could possibly help. I thought he'd turn his back, close his heart, slink away. Instead, he promised sanctuary."

"Have to Find...life...is...a-...gamble...after ...all."

"And the scary thing is, I'm on a fast track to that same aviary. Unless I find my wings."

"In a woman's womb another chance to makethe world a better place."

"I've been alone since my mom met Scott.He sucked the nectar from her heartlike a famished butterfly. No nurture,no nourishment left for Kristina.A vacation is a poor substitutefor love."

"The things they say!A truck driver would blush.I would never talk that wayto Trevor he walks on water.I want him to think I do too.For a while, he did, or at leasthe pretended to.I did things with TrevorI wouldn't dare to confessto anyone-things I didn'tknow anyone did.But he wanted me to,so I did. That's what you dowhen you love someone,right?"

"Some peopleAre worthy of a bullet straightto the heart because that is wherecruelty evolves into evil.Somehumans aren't human at all,despite how they appear.Humanity is what lives insidepeople,harbored beneath skin, flesh,and bone."

"When You Weren't Looking...why....Can't you...care...more...about...me."

"Might as Well Laugh...remember...when...Life...made...sense."

"Innocence eroded into nightmare.All because of very bad touch.Love, corrupted."

"Nobody seems to care that with every push to live up to their expectations, my own dreams vaporize."

"Our past may shape us, but it doesn't define who we become."

"Home...Home....the word,...has...no...meaning."

"Happiness, you see, its just an illusion of Fate, a heavenly sleight of hand designed to make you believe in fairy tales. But there's no happily ever after. You'll only find happy endings in books. Some books."

"Faces...I...don't...know...the real...me."

"I don't believe in God, don't believe in the devil. Unless you want to count my mother. She might be Satan's sister, I suppose."

"Once...Why...lie?...when...truth is...the easier path."

"I'm afraid it will never be perfect again. I am indelibly stained. Forever redefined, but blurred around the edges."

"Me? Beautiful? I'm plain as cardboard. That may be how you see yourself, but the rest of the world would be hard to agree. You shine brighter than the Milky Way.Now there are those who might try to take that from you, but you don't have to give it away. Keep on shining Pattyn.And when the right young man comes along, he'll love you all the more for giftin' this sad planet with your light."

"I don't know449that much about the Bible, other than it waswritten thousands of years ago, which dilutesits relevance. However, I know its faithfulfollowers tend to cherry-pick verses to suittheir needs, the same way they cherry-pickwords or scenes from other books to labelobscene."

"She's no longer afraid to die. What she's afraid of is living, accepting the status quo."

"Honesty. Sobriety. My virginity. No way to regain the first two, I almost gave away the last."

"Girls get screwed.Not that kind of screwed, what I mean is, they're always on the short end of things.The way things work, how guys feel great, but make girls feelcheap for doingexactly what they beg for.The way they get to play you, all the while claiming they love you and making you believe it's true.The way it's okay to gift their heart one day, a backhand the next, to move on to the apricotwhen the peach blushes and bruises.These things make me believe God's a man after all."

"Tying the know means slipping a noose around love and choking it to death."

"Crawling up into daddy's lapwhen dad was stillDADDYnodding my head against his chest soaking in the comfort of his heartLISTENINGto the thump...thumpsomewhere beneath muscleand breastbone I remember his armstheir sublimeENCIRCLINGand the shawdow of his voice"I love you, little girl.Put away your bad dreams.Daddy's here"I put them away, Until Daddy became my nightmare that one that cameHOMEfrom work everyday and insteadof picking me up, chased me farfaraway."

"Every word an author writes causes ripples, like tossing a stone into a pond. And you don't know where they'll go, or who they'll touch, or when they might come back to you. I think everything you do is kind of like that, too."

"Living means taking chances. Risks. Playing safe all the time is being dead inside, even if you happen to still be breathing."

"We used to do coke, till "Just Say No" put the stuff out of reach. Now it's crank. Meth. The monster. It's a bitch on the body, but damn do you fly."

"I blamed the Bible,when its words were not at fault,only the way they're interpretedby those too willingto wield them like chain saws,cutting others off at the knees."

"Dream bigger before you can't remember to dream at all."

"Funny thing about the monster. The worse he treats you, the more you love him."

"Hurt. Enough to want to make someone else hurt too."

"I keep hearing that love isn't a logical emotion. Should I worry about that?"

"I felt angry, frustrated.I felt I didn't belong, not in my,church, not in my home, not in my skin."

"Am I more afraidOf taking a chance andlearning I'm somebodyI don't know, or of risking new territory,only to find I'm the sameold me? There is comfortin the tried and true.Breaking groundmight uncover a sinkhole,one impossible to climb outof. And setting sail inuncharted watersmight mean capsizing intoa sea monster's jaws.Easier to turn my back onthese thingsthan to try tjem and fail.And yet, a whisper insistsI need to know if they are oraren't integral to me.Status quo is a swamp.And stagnation is slow death."

"I'll Stay...leave...me....I'll...follow...you."

"I know there's no such thing as forever. So what can we be, in the now?"

"Does wanting to die equal losing your mind?"

"Something stirred beneath my skin, some being inside I'd only suspected existed, demon or angel, I couldn't say."

"When did creating a flawless facade become a more vital goal than learning to love the person who lives inside your skin?"

"Spilling a Secret What its size, will have varying consequences. It's not possible to predict what will happen if you open the gunnysack, let the cat escape. A liberated feline might purr on your lap, or it might scratch your eyes out. You can't tell until you loosen the knot. Do you chance losing a friendship, if that friend's well-being will only be preserved by betraying sworn-to silence trust? Once the seam is ripped, can it be mended again? And if that proves impossible, will you be okay when it all falls to pieces?"

"The problems with lies is they start to pile up, one on top of another, until it's hard to find your way out from under the heap."

"Forgiveness isn't my best thing.Easier staying pissed. But I'mtired of being pissed all the time.Tired of feeling hurt by stuff thatcan never be fixed because it isan indelible part of the past."