There are some things, after all, that Sally Owens knows for certain: Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and...

… the past was what we carried with us, threaded to the future, and we decided whether to keep it close or let it go.

Even as a small child, I understood that woman had secrets, and that some of these were only to be told to daughters. In this way we were bound together for eternity.

I thought he knew me better than most…Then one nigh Jack brought me flowers, a handful of fading daisies he’d picked up at a farm stand, but flowers all the same. That was the end;...

But in battle you cannot tell another when it is his time to enter the World-to-Come, nor is it possible to keep any man in this world when he wishes to leave it behind.

The best way to die is when your living

…and so many orchards circled the village that on some crisp October afternoons the whole wold smelled like pie.

Sometimes they would sit in the parlor together, both reading – in entirely separate worlds, to be sure, but joined somehow. When this happened, other people in the family couldn’t bring themselves to disturb them....

That was the sorrow of it. He saw the light but never expected the darkness.

Revenge did that to a person; it caused even the insecure and the meek to take foolhardy chances. After a while it became a way of life; the risks felt as natural as drawing a...

When all is said and done, the weather and love are the two elements about which one can never be sure.

… a man always revealed his own inner story in his actions and expressions. A man’s past deeds foretold his future and allowed anyone with half a brain to divine the path he would take.

Every fairy tale had a bloody lining. Every one had teeth and claws.

Here’s the thing about luck…you don’t know if it’s good or bad until you have some perspective.

But what we are given is taken as well, so that we know God’s glory comes to us from His will alone.

That just goes to show that you never can tell about a person by guessing,” Frances informs her niece. “That’s why language was invented. Otherwise, we’d all be like dogs, sniffing each other to find...

They say that dogs may dream, and when Topsy was old, his feet would move in his sleep. With his eyes closed he would often make a noise that sounded quite human, as if greeting...

He started to look at me in a manner I recognized: it was the way I looked at a new book, one I had never read before, one that surprised me with all it had...

Certain things need not be said, and there’s nothing, not a whisper, prayer, not a sacrifice, not a payment of any price, that would change what’s about to happen.

I wasn’t good company, that was true, and people avoided me, but that was all right. I was too busy dreaming.

Do you ever just put your arms out and just spin and spin and spin? Well, that’s what love is like; everything inside of you tells you to stop before you fall, but for some...

Some things, when they change, never do return to the way they once were. Butterflies for instance, and women who’ve been in love with the wrong man too often.

The story became a cloud, and the cloud a sheet of rain, and rain fell throughout the empire.

He knew even at an early age of seven, how dangerous it was for someone like him to have hope. He knows how to have no expectations. He can completely control not just what he...

I must keep my head and not give in to desire, for desire is what causes women to drown.

Stone should last forever, but on that night I came to understand that a stone was only another form of dust. Streams of holy dust loomed in the air, and every breath included remnants of...

I said of the world around us.”Is it not terrible?

I understood that fate could not be eluded forever; it came on leathery wings, swooping through the darkness like the bats in the orchards.

You should never trust a liar so you should never trust a man of honor. Those two are the worst of mankind.

When I walk, I walk with you. Where I go, you’re with me always.

Interesting, but she could see that the boy didn’t have a single lie in him. A very rare condition, especially for the male of the species.

I want the difficult stories, the ones that aren’t easy to believe, the twisted ones, the sorrowful ones, the ones that need telling most of all.

I wrote to find beauty and purpose, to know that love is possible and lasting and real, to see day lilies and swimming pools, loyalty and devotion, even though my eyes were closed, and all...

what was a rose but the living proof of desire, the single best evidence of human longing and earthly devotion. but desire could be twisted,after all, and Jealousy was the name of the rose that...

That was the way illness appeared in a house, in the corners, in between floorboards, on the hooks in the closet, along with the sweaters and coats.

I thought perhaps I had been wrong, too quick to judge the essence of a being by its appearance, still not fully understanding that, in the world God has given us, all things must change.

Once I knew nothing about McKay and now I knew everything about him. This seemed as good as any reason for not walking out the door. There are so many ways to stop the knowing,...

It had made her too helpless, because that’s what love did. There was no way around it and no way to fight it. Now if she lost, she lost everything.

…he had a way of taking your hand which made it clear he’d have to be the one to let go.”From Alice Hoffman’s “Local Girls”, pg.102.

He stepped off the pavement like a man jumping off a bridge, as calm as a swimmer with an ocean out below. Lucy had known what he was going to do the instant their eyes...

Someone killed himself because of me once, Meredith said.People kill themselves because of what’s inside of them, not because of other people.

Pride is a funny thing; it can make what is truly worthless appear to be a treasure.

Before she can stop herself, she thinks about desire, how it lives within you and yet is separate, surfacing when it chooses, without permission, in the harsh afternoon light, at the moment when you least...

Your grand daughter may not be looking for trouble, but trouble is looking for her.

He wanted pain, I saw that in him, and what a man wants he will often manage to find.

Perhaps it is possible to discover more in silence than in speech. Or perhaps it is only that those who are silent among us learn to listen.

I only have one story now.The story was heroin. It was made out of sensation, not words; it was invisible and murderous and unstoppable. Sam disappeared from her slowly, like a snowman melting, until all...

Sometimes the right thing feels all wrong until it is over and done with.

If we had paid attention, we would have understood there are some things in this world you cannot outrun.

The sky is already purple; the first few stars have appeared, suddenly, as if someone had thrown a handful of silver across the edge of the world.