“The man was bearing down on me. My hands were limp and wet. Please, I thought. Please. Who was I addressing? The man? God? Whoever handled these things.”

“. . . even the surprise of harmless others in the house disturbed me. I didn't want my inner rot on display, even accidentally. Living alone was frightening in that way. No one to police the spill ...”

“It pained me to imagine how our twosome appeared to others, marked as those kind of girls who belonged to each other. Those sexless fixtures of high school.”

“Money is ego, and people won't give it up. Just want to protect themselves, hold on to it like a blanket. They don't realize it keeps them slaves. It's sick" "What's funny is that as soon as you gi...”

“Poor Sasha. Poor girls. The world fattens them on the promise of live. How badly they need it, and how little most of them will ever get. The treacled pop songs, the dresses described in the catalo...”

“Adults always teased me about having boyfriends, but there was an age where it was no longer a joke, the idea that boys might actually want you.”

“I was awakened by a tremendous earthquake, and though I hadn ever before enjoyed a storm of this sort, the strange thrilling motion could not be mistaken, and I ran out of my cabin, both glad and f...”

“An afternoon drive from Los Angeles will take you up into the high mountains, where eagles circle above the forests and the cold blue lakes, or out over the Mojave Desert, with its weird vegetation...”

“Chiron looked surprised. I thought that would be obvious enough. The entrance to the Underworld is in Los Angeles.”

“She was bendable light: she shone around every corner of my day.”

“Over the summit, I saw the so-called Mono desert lying dreamily silent in the thick, purple light -- a desert of heavy sun-glare beheld from a desert of ice-burnished granite.”

“Love is a weapon of Light, and it has the power to eradicate all forms of darkness. That is the key. When we offer love even to our enemies, we destroy their darkness and hatred...”

“The beginning of wisdom, as they say. When you're seventeen you know everything. When you're twenty-seven if you still know everything you're still seventeen.”

“Do you know why you feel destined for something greater? Why? Kip asked, quiet, hopeful. Because youre an arrogant little shit.”

“I knew from Brianna that being beautiful wasnt all great. Brianna had changed in middle school. One day we were both seventh graders and the next, she was a supermodel who had a seventh grader for ...”