“You couldn't take two roads. And once you were on one, there was no going back.”

“The guys were going down one road, and I was going down another.”

“I watched the way they looked at each other. Any idiot could see they were in love, even if they were the only two idiots who couldn't.”

“You couldn't unburn the books. You could only buy new ones.”

“There were only two kinds of people in our town. ―The stupid and the stuck- ―The ones who are bound to stay or too dumb to go. Everyone else finds a way out.”

“It was like being born in Germany after World War II, being from Japan after Pearl Harbour, or America after Hiroshima. History was a bitch sometimes. You couldn't change where you were from. But still, you didn't have to stay there. You didn't have to stay stuck in the past, like the ladies in the DAR, or the Gatlin Historical Society, or the Sisters. And you didn't have to accept that things had to be the way they were, like Lena. Ethan Carte Wate hadn't, and I couldn't either.”

“I'd never really thought past the whole dying-for-the-sake-of-the-world part of things. When you're alive, you don't dwell on how you're going to spend your time once you're dead. You just figure you're gone, and the rest will pretty much take care of itself.”