“Mom, I can take care of myself, and I've been doing a pretty good job of it for quite some time. Besides, I enjoy the peace and quiet of coming home alone...no unexpected interruptions." Victoria said, trying to convince herself.”

“I spent so much time telling myself that this wasn't home that I started to believe it,” she said carefully. “Belonging has always been tough for me.”“I can be your home,” he said quietly. “Belong to me.”

“Besides the alternate universe offered by a book, the quiet space of a museum was my favorite place to go. My mom said I was an escapist at heart . . . that I preferred imaginary worlds to the real one. It’s true that I’ve always been able to yank myself out of this world and plunge myself into another.”

“Don't take a pretty book home just cuz it's pretty," Mom always said, "and a girl neither."Somewhere”

“The passion for being for ever with one's fellows, and the fear of being left for a few hours alone, is to me wholly incomprehensible. I can entertain myself quite well for weeks together, hardly aware, except for the pervading peace, that I have been alone at all.”

“I've always been impulsive. My thinking is usually pretty good, but I always seem to do it after I do my talking — by which time I've generally destroyed all basis for further conversation.”