“If one has never known freedom, it is easy to be blind to the gridirons composing one's cell.”

“I'd seen entire constellations of possibility I'd never previously been aware of, so blinded had I been by the bright, glaring stars of expectation. Freedom, I was beginning to think, had less to do with where you were, and was more about who you were trying to be.”

“You're like a half-tamed creature, still shy of the bridle. 'Except you enthrall me, never shall be free.' But freedom is an illusion, anyway.”

“College had once been my greatest aspiration; it stood for everything my mother did not—intellectualism, feminism, freedom. But being kidnapped had given me plenty of time to think, and somewhere between all that fear and dread, I'd realized that was the wrong reason to go to college. That the potential for those things had been inside of me all along, only I'd never realized because I hadn't believed myself strong enough to break free without an intermediary.”

“When mothers warn their daughters about all the cold nasty men out there who will only break their tender little hearts, I'm the one they've got in mind because I'm the one who broke their hearts when their mothers were warning them.”

“People only picked the pretty, sweet-smelling flowers. The ones with thorns were left alone.”

“What's happening to me?" she whispers to the quilt. "I'm losing my mind."Though that implies that I had one to begin with.”