“Perhaps it wasn't beating because it had broken clean through and stopped”

“And I thought maybe I didn't need to worry about my heart anymore because it had stopped beating a couple of seconds earlier, and I was still sitting there living and breathing-though admittedly I wasn't feeling much of anything.”

“Tina wondered how long it had taken Lockie to give up on his parents. How long had he shouted and screamed and hoped for rescue? Did he stop because of the beatings or did he stop because the uniform told him no one was looking for him.”

“Houses don't clean themselves, she'd mutter. Sometimes she cleaned the bits she had just cleaned. It wasn't like living in a house, but more a question hovering over the surfaces.”

“We resist our brokenness because we want to BE STRONG, but little do we know that strength is obtained only through our brokenness, because where we are weak and broken we find God's strength to get us through.”

“The pain had no ebb or flow. It was a constant ever-increasing knell in my chest, timed to the beating of my broken heart.”