Barbara Kingsolver

People love to believe in danger, as long as it’s you in harm’s way, and them saying bless your heart.

If you’re surprised a mom would discuss boyfriend hotness with a kid still learning not to pick his nose, you’ve not seen the far end of lonely.

A city is the weirdest, loneliest thing.

What I said about people, that if they care, they can tell one kind of a thing from another? Big if. Possibly the biggest if on the planet of earth. Why notice zero on snakes, and a thousand percent on certain things about people?

If you’ve noticed, it’s the prettiest people that everybody wants to believe, and next after that, the most wrecked.

At the time, I thought my life couldn’t get any worse. Here’s some advice: Don’t ever think that.

I told her nobody ever asked me that question before, about growing up and what I wanted to be, so I didn’t know. Mainly, still alive.

For any kid that gets that as an option: take that sweet thing and run with it. Hide. Love it so hard. Because it’s going to fucking leave you and not come back.

It hit me pretty hard, how there’s no kind of sad in this world that will stop it turning.

But Aunt June got me something amazing: a set of colored markers for making comics, fine-tip on one end and thick on the other, in more colors than you’d think there would be. Eight entire flesh tones. Also a real book for making comic strips, with the panel dividers printed in. I couldn’t believe my eyes. After Mom died I’d not wanted to draw any more at all, but now I couldn’t wait to run off someplace and get started. I would make one of Aunt June as Wonder Nurse, putting a new heart back inside a boy that had his own torn out.