“No duh, Susan said. You are like a walking vault of things you don't tell people. People who have secrets should pay you to hold on to them for them. You could be like a secret bank.”

“Ugly people kill people all the time. But when pretty people did, it got attention.”

“Her body was spattered with tiny bits of the reverends flesh and blood, like someone had combined shrimp and tomato soup and then forgot to put the lid on the blender.”

“Robbins had opened Gabby up. Her charred skin was peeled back, and her ribs were removed. She was pink inside, like steak that had been burned on a high heat but remained raw in the middle.”

“She lied to me today," Archie said."A teenager?" Susan said with faux surprise. "Lying to an authority figure? Impossible.”

“People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What Ive learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders ones reality to the person to whom one lies, making tha...”

“Before you enbark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”

“Maybe I could dole out the truth in tiny pieces that, once assembled, would make a picture that resembled a reality in which I hadnt done anything wrong.”

“If young people are our greatest asset in a war that must be won then wemust be willing to extricate them at whatever cost from the clutchesof those who seek to exploit their weaknesses”

“When I was a teenager, I read a lot of Poe.”

“A human teenager. One of Gods most misbegotten creatures big like grown-ups and yet dumb like children.”