“I'm me," she whispered. "Me"Nel didn't know quite what she meant, but on the other hand she knew exactly what she meant."I'm me. I'm not their daughter. I'm not Nel. I'm me. Me."Every time she said...”

“She looked around for a place to be. A small place. The closet? ... It was both small and bright, and she wanted to be in a very small, very bright place. Small enough to contain her grief.Bright e...”

“It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody long before they leave you.”

“In a way, her strangeness, her naivete, her craving for the other half of her equation was the consequence of idle imagination. Had she paints, or clay, or knew the discipline of the dance, or stri...”

“It had been the longest time since she had had a rib-scraping laugh. She had forgotten how deep and down it could be. So different from the miscellaneous giggles and smiles she had learned to be co...”

“To create art with all the passion in one's soul is to live art with all the beauty in one's heart.”

“art is risk made visible”

“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”