“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...”

“Like any artist without an art form, she became dangerous.”

“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...”

“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...”

“The heart was made to be broken.”

“He does something to me, that boy. Every time. Its his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.”

“Was it hard?" I ask.Letting go?"Not as hard as holding on to something that wasn't real.”

“I keep coming back to you in my head, but you couldn't know that, and I have no carbons”

“What a wonderful sadness to miss the one you have loved forever, it seems, and know that she is waiting at home.”

“A sleeping man would miss the best of the evening, and the moonrise as well.”