“We understand what we want to understand.”

“We are born knowing how to be just. And we die knowing we spent a lifetime pretending we didn't.”

“Our flaws are obvious, yet we are loved and able to love, if we choose, because there is that bit of the divine still smoldering in us.”

“Sometimes asking God for a reason for something is like asking Him why the sky is blue. There is a complex, scientific reason for it, Claire, but most children, including you, are content with knowing it is blue because it is. If we understood everything about everything, we would have no need for faith.”

“I used to think mercy meant showing kindness to someone who didn't deserve it, as if only the recipient defined the act. The girl in between has learned that mercy is defined by its giver. Our flaws are obvious, yet we are loved and able to love, if we choose, because there is that bit of the divine still smoldering in us.”

“We moved wordlessly from one room to another, from the room of the dead to the room where time lay in pages everywhere I looked.”

“When you only do what is expected of you, you never learn what you would've done had you chosen for yourself.”