“The whole house seemed to exhale a melancholy breath of emptiness”

“Although sex was something they both regarded as perilous, marriage had, by contrast, seemed safe a safe house in a world of danger; the ultimate haven of two solitary, fearful souls. When you were...”

“But there is no Messiah of Sitka. Landsman has no home, no future, no fate but Bina. The land that he and she were promised was bounded only by the fringes of their wedding canopy, by the dog-eared...”

“Landsman and Bina were married to each other for twelve years and together for five before that. Each was the other's first lover, first betrayer, first refuge, first roommate, first audience, firs...”

“Mendel had a remarkable nature as a boy. Im not talking about miracles. Miracles are a burden for a tzaddik, not the proof of one. Miracles prove nothing except to those whose faith is bought very ...”

“Literature, like magic, has always been about the handling of secrets, about the pain, the destruction, and the marvelous liberation that can result when they are revealed. Telling the truth when t...”

“One day you fall for this boy. And he touches you with his fingers. And he burns holes in your skin with his mouth. And it hurts when you look at him. And it hurts when you dont. And it feels like ...”

“My father gave me a ruined boy to compensate for the fact that he does not love me. The boy is fragile, brokenbroke himselfbroke everything.I asked him why he did it. He said because the world was ...”

“My whole life, I had thought that my story was, again and again: Once upon a time, there was a boy, and he had to risk everything to keep what he loved. But really, the story was: Once upon a time,...”

“But this time as soon as he moved she began to fade. He stopped at once, not breathing again, motionless, willing his eyes to see that she had stopped too. But she had not stopped. She was fading, ...”

“Nico knew something about ghosts. Letting them get inside your head was dangerous. He wanted to help Reyna, but since his own strategy was to deal with his problems alone, spurning anyone who tried...”

“It was all real and blazing with detail. But I was shadow, light as mist, mute as the wallpaper.”

“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...”