“I wouldn't have done it, but it scared me that I thought of it at all. I scared me.”

“Be careful, okay, when you go there. Talia was really scared of this Malvolia chick. She could be dangerous.”“What’s she going to have—an assault weapon?”“Worse,” I say. “She’s got magical powers.”

“That night I lay in bed, remembering the moment when her hand touched mine. I wondered what it would be like to have her touch me not by accident, to maybe have her let me touch her.”

“Better?" I went from holding her hand to hugging her. "Lindy, you loved me when I wasn't even human.You kissed me when I had no lips. You saw what was deep down inside me when I wasn't even sureabout it myself. Believe me, there's no way I could do better. I think you're perfect.”

“This is where he should say that he is in love with me, that I have changed his life and that he loves me for it. But he doesn't. Is it because he is shy? Or because he is too young to say such a thing? Or is it merely because he does not love me? The worst of it is, I am falling in love with him.”

“She's using me. And I like it.”

“In stories like Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, they always say the heroine is 'as good as she is beautiful.' I wondered if people just wanted that to be true, wanted the beautiful to be good. I wondered if they wanted the ugly to be bad because then they wouldn't have to feel bad for them.”