“So maybe my own life is not so drastic and dreadful...maybe I am just like all those other girls who have come before me with their oily T-zones and random terrible days and bittersweet triumphs, the world billowing out behind them.”

“I guess relationships are just funny like that. It's impossible to figure out why some work out and others don't. Why someone can be so imperfect and still be the perfect person for you. Maybe, in the end, it's not about changing the person you care about. Maybe it's about learning what you can live with. Or maybe it's really about learning what you can't live without.”

“The tongue am I of those who lived before me, as those that are to come will be the voice of my unspoken thoughts. And so who shall be applauded if the song be sweet, if the prophecy be true?”

“Annie, last year.... That day in the yard.... I made a mistake not strapping on a gun the minute I found you, and it wasn't that I was against marrying you, it was that I was against letting them make me do anything. So they almost killed Foxface and threatened to shoot the horses, and I gave in. But they could have shot everything in five miles to pieces and couldn't have made me crawl." A tremor passed through her, but he continued. "That was last year. Now if somebody pointed a gun at you, really could hurt you, I'd crawl on my belly or my knees or do anything else. Maybe that's part of why loving is frightening. I'd rather pay the price and have you than be invincible because I have nothing.”

“maybe it's not about having a plan, or even a plan B. Maybe it's about seeing where life takes you and learning to enjoy the ride.”

“Well, they came the day after you did, but they made me angry, so I sent them away." Noah did not understand. "Sent them away?" Cord rejoined the conversation. "Ran them out of the house with a rifle." Noah couldn't have shown more astonishment if they'd said a mouse had killed a cat.”

“These memories descend out of nowhere, giving me pieces of who I was, but their significance is lost. I sigh and resume my walk, not knowing if this memory is important, or just more of the jumbled trivia of Jenna's life, like sock shopping. Maybe that is all any life is composed of, trivia that eventually adds up to a person, and maybe I just don't have enough of it yet to be a whole one.”