“Sometimes your place is not something you find, but something you have when you need it.”

“And for a moment, I understand that I have friends on this lonely path; that sometimes your place is not something you find, but something you have when you need it.”

“He said to tell you to remember your heart in all things, that it is where your honor and your destiny will be found. Does it mean anything to you?'It is something he would say from time to time-that the eye could be misled, but that the heart was true.”

“May I suggest that you all read? And often. Believe me, it's nice to have something to talk about other than the weather and the Queen's health. Your mind is not a cage. It's a garden. And it requires cultivating.”

“I’ve been thinking about that book about the boys who crash on an island,” Mary Lou said to Adina one afternoon as they rested on their elbows taking bites from the same papaya. “Lord of the Flies. What about it?” You know how you said it wasn’t a true measure of humanity because there were no girls and you wondered how it would be different if there had been girls?” “Yeah?” “Maybe girls need an island to find themselves. Maybe they need a place where no one’s watching them so they can be who they really are.” There was something about the island that made the girls forget who they had been. All those rules and shalt nots. They were no longer waiting for some arbitrary grade. They were no longer performing. Waiting. Hoping. They were becoming. They were.”

“Did they find something wanting in you, Gemma, at the party? You didn’t speak too freely or behave…strangely?”I grew claws and bayed at the moon. I confessed that I eat the hearts of small children. I told them I like the French.”

“There is much asked and only so much I think I can or should answer, and so, in this post I would like to give a few thoughts on what seemed to be the overwhelming question: “WHY?”And here is the best answer I can give: Because.Because sometimes, life is damned unfair.Because sometimes, we lose people we love and it hurts deeply.Because sometimes, as the writer, you have to put your characters in harm’s way and be willing to go there if it is the right thing for your book, even if it grieves you to do it.Because sometimes there aren’t really answers to our questions except for what we discover, the meaning we assign them over time.Because acceptance is yet another of life’s “here’s a side of hurt” lessons and it is never truly acceptance unless it has cost us something to arrive there.Why, you ask? Because, I answer.Inadequate yet true.”