Quotes from Laura Ruby

In despair, he left that farm and came to Bone Gap when it was a huge expanse of empty fields, drawn here by the grass and the bees and the strange sensation that this was a magical place, that the bones of the world were little looser here, double-jointed, twisting back on themselves, leaving spaces one could slip into and hide.

God will break California from the surface of the continent like someone breaking off a piece of chocolate. It will become its own floating paradise of underweight movie stars and dot-commers, like a fat-free Atlantis with superfast Wi-Fi.

It is nice. But a pretty face is just a lucky accident. Pretty can't feed you. And you'll never be pretty enough for some people.

Compose a haiku in honor of a person you admire. You are spiky spring, humming summer, wings that beat back ghosts of winter.

She got icing all over her face. I think that's why I like her. For the good stuff, she's willing to get icing all over her face. Who wouldn't want a girl like that?

She's still small and I still want to put her in my pocket. -Seven Chillman, classmate

People say the word 'nice' and they mean 'boring.' A lot of times nice is boring. But that's not what I mean. Roza was nice and not boring at all.

Do you have a girl? Where's your girl? Where's your girl?" "She's her own girl

The truth is," I say, "he's having my baby. It's a medical miracle. Someone call the newspapers.

He preferred her barefoot, he said. She had such lovely feet. Roza didn't agree. What was lovely about feet that could not take you anywhere? What was lovely about feet that could not run?

Nothing is funny about war. But one must find reasons to laugh anyways, especially when nothing is funny. Sometimes joy is the only defense you have, and your only weapon. Remember that" -Sister Bert

There's always a fire.

We have to get through the summer.' Finn didn't want to get through the summer. He wanted to fall into it, hunker down and stay for a while.

He clears his throat. 'Do you want to go to a movie or something?' The wings stop flapping. 'I can't. I'm sort of under house arrest.' 'Till when?' 'Till pigs fly and hell freezes over.' 'Soon, then.' 'Any minute.

Hoping so hard that there was one boy out there who wanted you as much as you wanted him, because you wouldn't know what you would do with yourself if this were not true.

Finn drifted around, rootless and aimless as dandelion fluff in the wind.

Every little decision you made, every person you met could change your life, set it on a different course, or end it.

I like to rub Twinkies under my arms.

The principal: You're a smart girl, so I'm going to be blunt. I think you'd be a lot happier if you stopped acting so weird. Me: Who says I'm not happy?

Trying to get a handle on what he thought, what he felt, what he thought about what he felt and vice versa, was like trying to open a locked door by ramming it with his head.

According to my mother, no book is only a book. A book can improve your mind or it can break it.

Funny how you notice how beautiful things are just when you're about to leave them, she thought.

The way they knew that Bone Gap had gaps just wide enough for people to slip through, or slip away, leaving only their stories behind.

Finn fell asleep draped in Kittens and dreamed that the corn walked the earth on skinny white roots, liked to joke with the crows, and wasn't afraid of anything.