“I thought about having a proper room,breathing life into it, and nobody minding.”

“It was not, of course, a proper thing to do. But then I have never pretended, nor will ever pretend, that Emily was a proper child. Books are not written about proper children. They would be so dull nobody would read them.”

“Drifting off to sleep, I thought about her. How nobody is perfect. How you just have to close your eyes and breathe out and let the puzzle of the human heart be what it is.”

“With my first & last breath thought of minds soul I will have faith in me.”

“I thought, When a man is properly drunk it is as though he is an a room by himself--there is a physical, impenetrable separation between him and his fellows.”

“Sometimes Josie thought of her life as a room with no doors and no windows. It was a sumptuousroom, sure-a room half the kids in Sterling High would have given their right arm to enter-but itwas also a room from which there really wasn’t an escape. Either Josie was someone she didn’twant to be, or she was someone who nobody wanted.”