Sarah Miller

“Guys are always confused by how soft and sentimental they are.”

“Incredible that the best route to winning friends is not necessarily kindness or flattery, but letting them know you won't tolerate their bullshit.”

“I spend a lot of time trying to convince myself that nothing really matters except being alive.”

“Why does everyone have to be so cool all the time? And also why do white people always have to act like black people to avoid looking like dorks?”

“Like most girls, I want a lot. Fame and fortune. Equal rights. Shoes no one else has. But I'd trade all that in for the perfect guy. (Don't tell me there's something wrong with that. I don't know of a single person who doesn't spend most of her time thinking about love.) Anyway, ever since I could think, I have been imagining and reimagining the exact sort of boy I want to love and who would love me back. Basically, I imagine someone who has all the good attributes of the male species and whose bad ones wouldn't ruin my life.”

“I wish I wasn't an imperial highness or an ex-grand duchess. I'm sick of people doing things to me because of what I am. Girl-in-white-dress. Short-one-with-fringe. Daughter-of-the-tsar. Child-of-the-ex-tyrant. I want people to look and see me, Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, not the caboose on a train of grand duchesses. Someday, I promise myself, no one will be able to hear my name or look at my picture and suppose they know all about me. Someday I will do something bigger than what I am.”

“We should be used to it," Tatiana reasons. "There have always been lines separating us from the rest of the world, whether they were satin ribbons or iron rails.”

“Maria cries unashamedly on my shoulder while I whisper and pet her cheek, but Anastasia grips my other hand and stares fiercely back at our Alexander Palace with her wet blue eyes until it is no more than a lemon-colored speck against the sunrise.”

“I'll pretend, I tell myself. Pretending is safer than believing.”

“My sisters and I sit together on a pair of suitcases. If we've forgotten anything, it's already too late -- our rooms have all been sealed and photographed. Anyway, Tatiana would say it's bad luck to return for something you've forgotten.”

“It's different now, like pushing the stop lever on my camera until nothing except the war can squeeze through the lens.”

“All our luxuries won't keep some men from dying -- it can only be a matter of time until I see it happen -- but in our lazaret death will creep silently onto the operating table or nestle between clean sheets.”

“When the windowpanes start to turn from black to gray, my sisters cradle themselves around me, rocking me like the sea until I can taste the salt of our tears”

“I cross myself and close my eyes. Where we go next, we go together.”

“Sounds buzz around me, and I'm sure the painted dragonflies have come loose from the frieze on our walls to flap their wings in my ears, making my skin prickle and crawl as tides of sickness wash me away.”

“Olga sits on the carpet in front of her shelves with stacks of books scattered around her, struggling to pick between her old favorites. She's all bent over, like a puppet without a hand inside it.”

“Check it out," Gideon says. "I prayed to god to send a sign that I wasn't going to get kicked out of school, and a plane flew overhead. And then another one."Molly put her hands on her hips. "Behold the celestial event so incredible it happens every 34 seconds." Gid stares at her, uncomprehending. "It's called a flight path," She says. "Your a moron.”

“It's commonly believed that there's less pressure on a woman to be married these days than there used to be. If that's true, if things are better now than they were before, then they once must have been very bad indeed.”

“Behind every successful woman are several confused men who give her something to make fun of.”