Quotes from Marisa de los Santos

That was how her mother was, catching all the available light in any room and making it part of her.

All is one and all is different.

I know a lot of people do jobs their whole lives that they don't find fascinating. Wonder is a luxury. But I wanted it.

It's just that without wanting to or trying to—and for years I was deliberately trying not to—I held on to love. Or it held on to me. Not active love; not love, the verb form. It was more just there, a small, unshakable thing, leftover, useless, as vestigial as wisdom teeth or a tailbone, but still potent enough so that when I heard his voice on the phone, my heart gave a tiny jump of hope that made me want to slap it.

Chicken Soup for the Soul". You've heard of these books, am I right? We've all heard of them. But I wonder if you're aware of just how many "Chicken Soup" books exist on the planet. No offense, but I doubt it. I doubt it because in the time it would take you to come up with a number, the number would have become obsolete. Even as you read this, in some quiet, fecund place, another "Chicken Soup" book is being born.

in my family I have comrades-hearty and loyal-when what I need are intimates, and I've never figured out how to get us all to make the switch. I've never found a way in.

IT STARTED THE WAY a lot of things in tenth grade started, with Itzy Wolcraft shrieking across the cafeteria.

fog, how the thing of it was it really was

We think our parents are in charge, right? Like they know what they're doing? But the truth is, they're making it up as they go along, just like we are. Just like everyone. If we judge them by their worst mistakes, they're all, like, gargantuan failures. Maybe you should try judging your mom by her intentions, by whether she, like, loves you and is doing her best.

Number six: Zach never tailgates, ever, no matter how slowly the car in front of him is going. Because the driver in front of you could be anyone--an organ donor, a war hero, a man who's just lost his best friend, a kid with a new license doing her best, said Cornelia. Not tailgating acknowledges the mystery and humanity of strangers. It's one of those small habits that speaks volumes.

returned wedding gifts and penned endless notes of apology to the givers and to all our would-be-turned-would-not-be wedding guests, and if I say that I felt every word of those notes carve themselves into my skin like in that scary Dolores Umbridge detention scene in the fifth Harry Potter, I'm exaggerating, but only a little.

If you never share the worst thing you've ever done with a single person, if you just carry it all by yourself, maybe it comes between you and everyone you meet, even if it's years later.

Her head had been hurting for days, but under the falling water, the headache opened like a rose- bright red, layered, and complicated.

her salvation lies in creating a tightly woven network of nurturing, sustaining female friends.

It was a good way to begin. I've found that almost everything is better when it starts with a joke and a mouthful of really great food.

Nowadays, I want to be smart, but back then, I'm afraid I wanted to seem smart, too.

Cornelia—who was in town dropping off her children at her parents' house for a week of, as she put it, "unfettered joy, limitless pie, and irreversible spoiling

As Will stood watching Pen, just before he turned away, his initial astonishment shifted into something quieter. Soon, she will see me; we'll sit someplace and talk, he thought. He felt like a kid who falls asleep on a long car trip, wakes up, and looks out the window to find that he's in a new place, or home, and that it's morning.

The Berkeley psychologist had called Dev "self-possessed" and at the time, he hadn't been exactly sure what that meant, but as he played chess with Clare, the word suddenly made perfect sense. The same way Teo and Cornelia belonged to Clare, Clare belonged to herself. Clare liked being Clare, the same way that Dev had always (even when he was friendless and invisible) liked being Dev.

You mean you're not on your way home?" asked Pen. Will could hear the joy in her voice. "Not unless you mean you," he told her. "I'm on my way to you.

She only hoped, and her hope was slender- a wisp of hope, a ghost.

But I didn't cry. I sat stiller than I'd ever sat, just kind of falling in on myself, getting denser and smaller, and all the while I screamed. Not with my vocal chords, nothing so pure and ordinary as that. My mouth didn't move, but I screamed with my whole body, my hair, my fingers, the back of my neck, the pit of my stomach, the pores of my skin. I screamed until I didn't have any voice left, until I was empty, and then I floated, shivering, in an ice-cold ocean of silence.

I lost track of where I ended and the city began, and after a few blocks, I'd have stretched to include the flower stand, the guy selling "designer" handbags on the corner, the skyscrapers' shining geometry, the scent of roasting nuts, the café with its bowl of green apples in the window, and the two gorgeous shopgirls on break, flamingolike and sucking on cigarettes outside their fancy boutique, eyes closed, rapturous, as though to smoke were very heaven.

Oh, this here and now, this particular snapshot fragment of forever.