“If you feel like you have to have them for some reason, tell me and we'll take them out together. Promise?""If you promise not to tell the whole school about this.""I won't tell them anything. Deal...”

“Mama says its just her nature. Some people are flowers, and some are thorns.”

“Bethyl Ann has vomited words like she ate the dictionary.”

“Mama says it’s just her nature. Some people are flowers, and some are thorns.”

“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of wi...”

“My dear,Find what you love and let it kill you.Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.Let it kill you and let it devour your remains....”

“If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Did you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that couldn't be filled?”

“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a...”