“Sometimes, in the dark of night, when no one else could hear him but me, he'd cry out, like he was fighting some silent little war in his head.”

“He had lived as a handful of taffy between his mother and his father all his life, had been pulled in so many directions, stretched here and there, that all he could do was plaster a mighty smile on his face.”

“I know how loud the seconds can sound as you stand by a window and peer out into the night.”

“It wasn't that Mattie didn't believe in God. She did, she most surely did. She just didn't like some of the things He did, is all.”

“Mattie felt drained, as though someone had stood her on her head and poured her entire heart and soul right out of her body.”

“Only Gracie knew what it was like to wake up at night and feel how cold sheets can get on the empty side of a bed.”

“The years of her life tumbled out onto the floor like marbles that she would never be able to gather up again in one bowl. The years of her life had been a made puzzle that one day gets unmade, the pieces all scattered.”