“My mother used to talk about passages and, once in a while, about ordeals. We all have them; we are all shaped by them. She thought the key was to find the healing in the hurt.”

“The world is filled with human toxins -- not the darkness that we all occasionally crave, but actually people who are so unwilling to bask in the angelic light that is offered us all that they grow poisonous -- and you can pray for their eventual recovery and healing. And sometimes those prayers will be answered. But sometimes these individuals have been vaccinated against goodness and against angels and they are so unwilling to give an inch to their God that often they never (and I use this expression absolutely literally) see the light.”

“We may talk a good game and write even better ones, but we never outgrow those small wounded things we were when we were five and six and seven.”

“Those who participate in a genocide as well as those who merely look away rarely volunteer much in the way of anecdote or observation. Same with the heroic and the righteous. Usually it's only the survivors who speak-and often they don't want to talk much about it either. p. 75”

“Children are resilient,” Anise said, simultaneously agreeing with her friend and cutting her off. “But often their wounds simply remain invisible until, all at once, whatever is festering there becomes agonizingly apparent.”

“When it seems you have nothing at all to live for, death is not especially frightening.”

“Boys look at us like we look at horses: color, height, eyes. tail. They can't help but have preferences.”