“What I have since realized is that if people expect you to be brave, sometimes you pretend that you are, even when you are frightened down to your very bones. ”

“It seems to me that we cant explain all the truly awful things in the world like war and murder and brain tumors, and we cant fix these things, so we look at the frightening things that are closer ...”

“I had not said anything about what had happened the day beforeabout being scared down to my very bones when I thought they had left me. I don't know what came over me. Ever since my mother left us ...”

“A person isn't a bird. You can't cage a person.”

“You can't keep the birds of sadness from flying over your head, but you can keep them from nesting in your hair.”

“I was wishing I was invisible. Outside, the leaves were falling to the ground, and I was infinitely sad, sad down to my bones. I was sad for Phoebe and her parents and Prudence and Mike, sad for th...”

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that youve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you sa...”

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there i...”