“I love you, Zo. That's yours to keep. No matter what.”

“Ephemerals: That's what Hub called them; flowers that bloomed and died in a matter of weeks, before the trees leafed out and shaded them. She liked the way the word sounded in her head. I am an ephemeral. It made her feel like something passing and precious.”

“She looked at him and realized that she loved him, out of nowhere, pure and simple. She loved him: this boy who fit so naturally in the water, the wild, and in everything else. She loved him: this boy who seemed to grow up out of the ground itself. There was a part of her that had known this from the first time she had seen him. This was what love was: a landslide in your heart.”

“You can't hold on, Zoe. Not to hate. Not even to love. You kill things that way. There's only one freedom. Forgiveness. And sometimes the hardest thing to do is to forgive yourself.”

“It was this little troublemaker named Ralph Waldo Duffy. Ralph Waldo is the one who really ruined the pageant. He picked up the baby Jesus by the feet, and your mother stood up in front of God and everybody and yelled, 'Joseph, put Jesus down before I smack you.' Even then she had the makings of a good mother.”

“What part did she give you?" Zoe asked her mother."Mary, the mother of God.""Talk about miscasting," Nelia said.”

“Boobs are like boyfriends. You go around wishing for them and trying to figure out what you have to do to get them, and worrying about all the things you're probably doing wrong, and then one day, who knows why, you wake up and find you've got more than you wanted.”