“She was the purest, biggest truth.”

“We're literal people, you and me. Whatever the most obvious interpretation is, that's our truth.”

“On the opposite page, there was a poem. It described how beauty and truth mattered more than anything else. They were the same thing. But it didn't matter how pretty you painted the world.”

“‎The simple truth is that you can understand a town. You can know and love and hate it. You can blame it, resent it, and nothing changes. In the end, you're just another part of it.”

“The sound of her voice was painful. She screamed, sobbed, whispered Hallelujah. But she never sang it.”

“Lillian is humming to herself, stretched out on top of my bookcase like she doesn’t mind the heat, and of course she doesn’t. Even when she was alive, she could never seem to get warm. The tune she’s humming is thin and tight with anxiety. It’s the opposite of carefree.”

“Goodbye," she said.When I didn't say it back, she rested her hand on the top of my head. The weight was strange and gentle. "I love you," she said. "And when I tell you goodbye, I don't mean forever or for long. Just that I'm going home now, and so are you.”