Truth is worse than soap in the eyes.

The truth is, time marches on and you have two choices: You move forward, come what may, and you experience all the sour and sweet things that fly at you from around corners, or you sit still. Don't sit still.

The air between them began to settle into a silence. Awkward, yet softly exciting. Like an unexpected snow day.

Life," said Simone St. James..."is stitched together from a series of mistakes, some little, some big, like the patches on the clothes we wore growin' up, you know

Regular people have such a hard time listening to the low hum of instinct.

You. You are standing in your own way. And that means whatever it is scares you. It won't forever...but take your time. Nothing good was ever rushed.

I'm an old man now. Old on the inside. I'm a drunk, and I hate to tell you, but I'm not prepared to change. So you have to figure out if you want to forgive me and love me like I am, or run away again. Or hell, stay here and hate me. Just...know that I love you the best way I know how. I always have. I do the best I can.

You really are a chameleon, aren't you? Fitting in wherever you go."Aren't we all?" she said...

A game like sardines is scary, not so much for the hider but for the seekers. It's scary because you lose your companions and the whole world creeps up quiet and you slowly realize you're going to stumble upon a secret place where everyone will jump out at you. And then, when you are the very last seeker, you start to wonder if you're the only person in the world. If the hiding place somehow sucked up the players and the last one has to decide to run away or get sucked up, too.

Father and Ivy used to go off on their excursions, never knowing that I was relieved when they were gone. That I'd wear my nightgowns all day and read from dawn till dusk.

Sometimes it's the smallest secrets that hold the most hope, the most fun, the most danger.

I wouldn't want to live that life. I choose the pain. I chose the pain.

Now, Simone, I'm a witch, remember? There's not much I don't know just by looking at you. And you know what I see when I look at you?'Simone walked out the door before she could finish, only hearing the steely hush of Millie's voice add, 'Nothing.

The kitchen of the Big House was always one of my favorite places. Airy and sunny. No modern cabinets or anything like that. Just a room full of windows, set into wise, worn walls.

The kitchen door, painted red from the day Naomi moved in, and a geranium, also red, outside on the stoop, gave the whole area a feeling of whimsy.

You'll be just fine," he said. "Listen to your heart and mind together, that's the trick. Not one or the other, both.

You're a girl on fire. And it seems to me, you been dousing those flames for years. Let yourself burn a little.

[P]eople think that in order for something to be frightening, it has to be dark, musty, and full of cobwebs and secrets. That's a lie of epic proportion. The scariest, most unexplainable things happen in the bright light of day. And just when you least expect.

There's a great deal of power in pretending.

Pain is like a map, I guess. But I found my shortcut on my "map of the heart." Shortcuts always take longer, don't they?

I'm like the moon," he started, "the hidden side of the moon. Not seen because it don't want to be seen. Everyone knows ther's is shadow there, but no one looks. It's like that with me, Byrd. I'm part illuminated, part in shadow-and that part that shines is all you ever wanted to see. But it kept getting smaller, and now it's dark. I'm a new moon now, Byrd. All there is, is shadow. Can you still see me? Do you still love me?

Too much work, I guess, to figure out each person as a whole instead of parts of this and parts of that.

I'd forgotten so many important things. I'd stolen away my own past. It made me feel like a coward.

Do you love her?' she asked him.'Always have,' he said.'Then why in the world would you leave her alone?

The only problem is the heart is quiet. It takes a very special kind of person to hear what the heart says. Most can't hear it at all and they have to guess. There are a lot of people walking around just guessing.

Love should never be a secret and it should never, ever be forgotten.

I don't pay no mind to rules. Seems to me, rules are things made up by scared people too afraid to die, so they can't live. Or too lazy to make their own decisions. Rules are for breakin', as far as I'm concerned.

Trees down south have a difference to them, a subtle, slinking movement, mile by mile- a gracefulness, a swagger. Lanky trees stretching out their wiry thin, Spanish moss-covered branches, moss that sways and beckons ... come here, come here, it says.