“Apparently even the most awful tragedies, and the people they'd ruined, got a little stale after a while.”

“The trouble with living alone, she had discovered-and the reason why most people she knew didn't like to be alone even for a little while-was that the longer you lived alone, the louder the voices on the right side of your brain got.”

“After a while, though, even the deepest sorrow faltered, even the most penetrating despair lost its scalpel edge.”

“After all, they'd be busy for a while, they were Candymakers now, and they had a whole lotta candy to make.”

“After all, life was like that for most of us – the small unpleasantnesses rather than the great tragedies; the little useless longings rather than the great renunciations and dramatic love affairs of history or fiction.”

“A little known fact: I read all the time. books were the one thing that got me out of Gatlin, even if it was only for a little while.”