Carol Rifka Brunt quotes:

I need to figure out the secret. I need to work out how to keep things flying back to me instead of always flying away.

I used to think maybe I wanted to become a falconer, and now I'm sure of it, because I need to figure out the secret. I need to work out how to keep things flying back to me instead of always flying away.

You think I don't know about wrong love, June? You think I don't understand embarrassing love?

I thought of all the different kinds of love in the world. I could think of ten without even trying. The way parents love their kids, the way you love a puppy or chocolate ice cream or home or your favorite book or your sister. Or your uncle. There's those kinds of love and then there's the other kind. The falling kind.

I know all about love that's too big to stay in a tiny bucket. Splashing out all over the place in the most embarrassing way possible.

I stared hard, trying to find a pattern. Thinking if I kept looking hard enough, maybe the pieces of the world would fit back together into something I could understand.

It's hard to do that, to decide to believe one thing over another.

I had no idea how greedy my heart really was.

I knew the way lost hopes could be dangerous, how they could turn a person into someone they never thought they'd be.

If you close your eyes when you sing in Latin, and if you stand right at the back so you can keep one hand against the cold stone wall of the church, you can pretend you're in the Middle Ages. That's why I did it. That's what I was in it for.

After a snowstorm is the best time to be in the woods, because all the empty beer and soda cans and candy wrappers disappear, and you don't have to try as hard to be in another time. Plus there's just something beautiful about walking on snow that nobody else has walked on.

There's just something beautiful about walking on snow that nobody else has walked on. It makes you believe you're special.

I was in a place where nobody knew my heart even a little bit.

I go to the movies whenever I get the chance, because the movie theater is like the woods. It's another place that's like a time machine.

Maybe you had to be dying to finally get to do what you wanted.I fidgeted around with the puzzle pieces for a while longer, but I wasn't lucky. Nothing seemed to fit without a whole lot of work.Then I had this thought: What if it was enough to realize that you would die someday, that none of this would go on forever? Would that be enough?

I stared at Greta's back. At her matted hair, decorated with brown torn leaves and dirt. What was happening to my sister? What if I'd never come? How long would she have stayed hidden in those cool, damp leaves? How long before she woke up alone and scared, with nothing but the howling of wolves to keep her company?"

There was a flicker of something in Greta's look. I couldn't tell whether it was a flicker of love or regret or meanness.

Nothing had changed. I was the stupid one again. I was the girl who never understood who she was to people.

That's the difference between you and Greta. She has better things to do. She gets involved in clubs, activities. She has friends. But you? You slump around in that room of yours--

All my parents' music came from greatest hits albums. It was like the thought of getting even one bum track was too much for them to handle.

My mother gave me a disappointed look. Then I gave her one back. Mine was for everything, not just the sandwich.

Going into the woods alone is the best way to pretend you're in another time. It's a thing you can only do alone. If there's somebody else with you, it's too easy to remember where you really are.

I stared out the window the whole way, because it was raining, which is how I like the city best. It looks like it's been polished up. All the streets shine and lights from everywhere reflect off the black. It's like the whole place has been dipped in sugar syrup. Like the city is some kind of big candy apple.

You can build a whole world around the tiniest of touches.

That's what being shy feels like. Like my skin is too thin, the light too bright. Like the best place I could possibly be is in a tunnel far under the cool, dark earth. Someone asks me a question and I stare at them, empty-faced, my brain jammed up with how hard I'm trying to find something interesting to say. And in the end, all I can do is nod or shrug, because the light of their eyes looking at me, waiting for me, is just too much to take. And then it's over and there's one more person in the world who thinks I'm a complete and total waste of space.

I felt like I had proof that not all days are the same length, not all time has the same weight. Proof that there are worlds and worlds and worlds on top of worlds, if you want them to be there.

Sometimes it feels good to take the long way home.

It seemed like life was a sort of narrowing tunnel Right when you were born, the tunnel was huge. You could be anything,. Then, like, the absolute second after you were born, the tunnel narrowed down to about half that size....I figured on the day you died, the tunnel would be so narrow, you'd have squeezed yourself in with so many choices, that you just got squashed.

I dream about people who don't need to have sex to know they love each other.

The kinds of things I want don't cost money.

I only need one good friend to see me through. Most people aren't like that. Most people are always looking out for more people to know.

You could try to believe what you wanted, but it never worked. Your brain and your heart decided what you were going to believe and that was that. Whether you liked it or not.

You get into habits. Ways of being with certain people.

Every new party, every new bunch of people, and I start thinking that maybe this is my chance.That I'm going to be normal this time. A new leaf. A fresh start. But then I find myself at the party, thinking, Oh, yeah. This again.