“But the hoping, that's what really hurts.”

“What should I say? That I like him so much it hurts?”

“I'm not hopeless, that's the problem. I'm too hopeful, if anything ... I'm so thick-headed it's taken me this long to give up on men, but I can't give up completely, you know? So I ... I channel all my hope into an idea, to someone who can't reject me because he isn't real!”

“You, uh, caught me there at an unladylike moment. Mrs. Wattlesbrook would probably box my ears.""That's why I spoke. I wanted to let you know you were not alone before you did something--something worse.""Like what?""Whatever women do when they think they're alone.”

“Ani felt a stirring, a hope, a winged thing waking up in her chest and brushing her heart with it's feathers.”

“Really, becoming a writer sounds more like a mental illness than a professional choice.”

“I wonder if everyone who faces death hurts like this. It's as though for the first time I realize how much just being alive makes my body ache. But I don't want that ache to stop.”