“No one can ever say the name Abel without saying Cain first.”

“When you break something and leave it lying there for someone to pick up the pieces, you don't get much say in how they put it back together.”

“She was grieving the loss of her youth, the closing down of possibilities as life became what it was rather than what it might have been.”

“There are two types of women in the world, Beattie, those who do things and those who have things done to them.”

“You matter, Mama repeated. Not because of whose son you are. Because of who you are. You're as important as every other human being that ever was or ever will be. Everyone matters.”

“The summer I turned eleven, I found out that ghosts are real. Guess it's hard to rest nice and easy in your coffin if you got stuff on your mind. Your soul stays chained to earth instead of zipping up to heaven to sing in one of the angel choirs. Sometimes ghosts show up in the msot peculiar places. Sometimes ghosts fool you. Then you are those ghosts that hang around because we have unfinished business. Business that sinks like old crawfish left in a bucket for a week. That's some nasty smell let me tell you. But the most important thing I learned is that ghosts can help you spill your guts before guilt eats you up and leaves a hole that can't ever be fixed no matter how many patches you try to steam iron across it.”

“Forgiveness was sweeter than I'd ever imagined. Hope was turning into faith. In fact, they were so close they could almost be the very same thing. Or they could be, if I let the tiny seed keep growing inside me. I realized that faith could fix a broken heart. Faith was the glue that held it together. That was part of the miracle.”