Mrs. Rimas cried at the mention of the wafer and the traditional Christmas blessing. "God grant that we are all together again next year.

I leapt eagerly into books. The characters’ lives were so much more interesting than the lonely heartbeat of my own.

I felt as if I were riding a pendulum. Just as I would swing into the abyss of hopelessness, the pendulum would swing back with some small goodness.

Sometimes there is such beauty in awkwardness.

Andrius, I'm...scared." He stopped and turned to me. "No. Don't be scared. Don't give them anything Lina, not even your fear.

He threw his burning cigarette onto our clean living room floor and ground it into the wood with his boot. We were about to become cigarettes.

Whether love of friend, love of country, love of God, or even love of enemy—love reveals to us the truly miraculous nature of the human spirit.

Decisions, they shape our destiny.

A wrongdoing doesn't give us the right to do wrong.

Some things just won’t go away, no matter how hard you scrub.

What do you do with all this bank, Josie? Be a lot easier if you just lifted your skirt.” “The only reason I’d lift my skirt is to pull out my pistol and plug you in the head.

We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.

Changing your words, changes your mind. Changing your mind alters your energy and that is what changes your life.

by the time you open your eyes, the world might have already changed.

Memory of the knife will be gone when the flesh is gone.

I realized the preserving a relationship at all costs was not as important as affirming the human right to be free from abusive treatment.

I like to deal with EVERY aspect of our condition, and that means terror and humor in equal mix. Some books have more room for humor than others.

It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.

Some people have a tendency to get knocked down in this business and sulk and whine, and they just create a rod for their back, really. You have to have broad shoulders and get through it.

There is no sorrow like a love denied. Nor any joy like love that has its will.

These signs have marked me extraordinary, And all the courses of my life do show I am not in the roll of common men.