I would eat fruitcake if there'd been a nuclear war and I'd run out of canned goods.

They say religion is about love, but you wonder how much of it really is about fear.

Fear was the biggest bullshitter, he’d said. But sometimes, too, fear told the truth.

I vow... "to not let the back & forth of forgiveness interrupt the steadiness of love.

she wonders if we feel more regret for the things we do or for the things we didn't do

The loneliness you feel with another person, the wrong person, is the loneliest of all.

Most of our parents wanted the best for us, I knew, but we also wanted the best for them.

One of the most constant and sustaining truths of my life has been this: I love the library.

It was all the things you could never understand and could never possess that made you ache.

Beaches, music, and car rides—they could all bring on a sudden bout of deep, dreamy thoughts.

It's human nature to want to help and soothe and save with your love, but it's also arrogant.

We can get so wrapped up in our own misconceptions that we miss the simple beauty of the truth.

So I put up with bad behavior in the name of loving the way I thought you were supposed to love.

Because words were hills and valleys you traveled, so lovely sometimes that they hurt your eyes.

One of the hardest tasks as a human being is knowing when to keep an open mind, and when not to.

Maybe it was wrong, or maybe impossible, but I wanted the truth to be one thing. One solid thing.

But, dear God, don't listen to me. I'm an old lady in the middle of nowhere without a real toilet.

Sometimes good choices are really bad ones, wrapped up in so much fear you can't even see straight.

You take care of the people you love, but it’s true, too, that you take care of the things you own.

You look so good," I say, and s***! Oh god, that's not what I meant. S***! "It looks good. The book.

An untold story has a weight that can submerge you, sure as a sunken ship at the bottom of the ocean.

Look right at it. Know you can." Dad said. "Look right at that fear. Fear is the biggest bullshitter.

Sometimes that´s all you need…, to know it´s not broken. To know you’re still whole and that you’ll heal.

You … You had always made the future feel safe. As long as you were in it too, beside me, I could be okay.

That's what people do who love you. They put their arms around you and love you when you're not so lovable.

I guess forgiveness, like happiness, isn’t a final destination. You don’t one day get there and get to stay.

It occurred to me then that a lot of life was either about wanting and not having, or having and not wanting.

I know parental embarrassment usually stops somewhere at fifteen, but he just kept on giving me good reasons.

You were a stone wall, a fort in high, unreachable trees, an island, my own island, that no boat could reach.

... But then again, a person could turn ugly. Their actual look could change when their actions were repulsive.

My most memorable teacher was Rich Campe, my third-grade teacher at Fairlands Elementary in Pleasanton, California.

Control was just wishful thinking, and you controlled things to hedge your bets, to be safe, to guard against loss.

Being needed was a handy trick. It could fill you up so full you never even noticed all the places that were empty.

If you don't participate, you're just taking up oxygen. (Bunny) Life is a banquet. Approach it with hunger. (Chuck)

I was like a chocolate in a box, looking well behaved and perfect in place, all the while harboring a secret center.

To an untrained eye, need and love were as easily mistaken for each other as the real master's painting and a forgery.

I don't get why prom is like a mini-wedding these days...No one should spend that kind of money for a high school dance.

All of my books come from something that I happen to be working out at a given point in my life. Its kind of self-therapy.

We are thickly layered, page lying upon page, behind simple covers. And love - it is not the book itself, but the binding.

Rejection, though--it could make the loss of someone you weren't even that crazy about feel gut wrenching and world ending.

It took me years to figure out that upset was upset, and tumultuousness was not the same thing as passion. Love isn't drama.

You've got to say what you mean and mean what you say...Doubt in your voice is an open door people will shove right through.

We don't want you convicted for condiment theft. You go to that prison, you'll meet big-time operators. Maple syrup stealers.

Although I love snow, it messes things up terribly around Seattle, with all of our hills. I worry about my loved ones driving.

If time heals all wounds, and a book can hold a person's entire life, then you can speed up the process with a pulp time warp.

In a lifetime, the recipe always needs amending - more of this, a little less of that, what to do now that the cake has fallen.

A drop of poison on that gathering snow. That moment in the fairy tale when we know what just happened but the princess doesn’t.

She would bring you some great book because she was a book matchmaker, because she loved books the way other girls loved clothes.

You can hold a secret, hold it so far in that it drives nearly every thought and every move you make- your very heartbeat, almost.

Becoming a YA author was actually a very lucky accident. When I wrote the Queen of Everything, I thought it was a book for adults.

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