“Kids think with their brains cracked wide open; becoming an adult, I've decided, is only a slow sewing shut.”

“When you are a kid you have your own language, and unlike French or Spanish or whatever you start learning in fourth grade, this one you are born with, and eventually lose...Kids think with their brains cracked wide open; becoming an adult...is only a slow sewing it shut.”

“Motherhood is a Sisyphean task. You finish sewing one seam shut, and another rips open. I have come to believe that this life I'm wearing will never really fit.”

“What I want, more than anything, is to turn back time a little. To become the kid I used to be, who believed whatever my mother said was one hundred percent true and right without looking hard enough to see the hairline crack.”

“This time of night, the sky was flung wide open, stars spread like a story across the horizon.”

“Everyone wants their kid to grow up and go to Harvard or be aquarterback for the Patriots. No one ever looks at their baby and thinks, Oh, I hope my kid grows upand becomes a freak. I hope he gets to school every day and prays he won’t catch anyone’sattention. But you know what? Kids grow up like that every single day.”

“She's not like anyone I've ever seen before. When I'm not with her, I want to be. And when she opens the book and I see her face, I can barely remember what I'm supposed to say, much less how to speak at all." I test the words on my tongue. "I think I might be in love with her. But how can I really know, since the only love I've ever experienced was written for me?”