Quotes from Jennifer McMahon

And as Rhonda told the story, she thought: this is how the past gets passed down. This is how memories are made. Half-invented, embellished, given a touch of whimsy. Daniel would be a saint now that he was dead. A beautiful man who made his child wings.

Reggie's earliest memory of her mother began with her mother balancing an egg on its end and ended with Reggie losing her left ear.

She places the orders for cases of frozen meat, huge cans of wax beans. She makes sure they stay

Call me a skeptic, but I've always thought that it takes more than organic vegetables and talking circles to make an ideal society. Raven

White space. Blank canvas. Intimidating, but thrilling beyond belief. Anything can happen. When was the last time her art mattered?

May 13 Deduction. Reduction. Redaction. How much has been redacted from the carefully curated version of our story?

We can't change things by wishing. Only by doing.

Hattie had learned, over the years, to put her own fears in a box at the back of her mind, to stand tall and brave, to be resilient to whatever enemy presented itself.

A spirit may come to pass along a message you may not wish to hear or even to warn you of something.

I know it's wrong, and it makes me sick, this new seething venom inside me, but I cannot help it.

I understand now that Martin has never known the real me. There is only one person who ever did—who saw all of me, all the beauty along with the ugliness. And it is that person I long for now. Auntie.

There are different kinds of cleverness, Sara.

Though they hadn't posted grades yet, she knew she'd aced all the classes, even if they had been as boring as shit.

There's nothing in that water except what we bring in with us.

Ain't no point worrying about what's been or what's gonna be. You just gotta do your best right now. And trust everyone else is doing the same.

People didn't just disappear without a trace. Not Willa Luce, and most certainly not boring old Alice Washburne, who had two girls at home, chickens to feed, and only ventured to town two days each week: to sell eggs and knitting at the farmers' market on Saturday mornings, and to go grocery shopping each Wednesday, when the Shop and Save had double-coupon day.

I wasn't ready to go traipsing into a crime scene or come face-to-face with a killer. I hadn't even had my coffee yet.

He'd brought his 35 mm camera, the one he used to take photos on his birding trips, and was snapping pictures of it all.

Marriage is full of such cut-and-dry arrangements, Rhonda thought,then felt that small ache she sometimes got at the back of her skull-the one that told her she might be alone forever, not a fate that she chose but rather a fate that seemed to have been chosen for her.

He nodded. This he understood. The need to learn whatever you could about the things you didn't know, to fill in the gaps, to be constantly supplying your brain with new information and facts.

We don't know the terrible things that are coming our way," she said as she looked down at the cut crystal, her eyes teary. "We just see the shiny surface, our own beautiful selves reflected in it. Not the monster lurking beneath.

There are as many ways to make one as there are monsters.

What's the difference, I wondered, between a ghost and a memory?

I think everything must have a soul and a memory, even tigers and roses, even snow. And, of course, old Shep, who spends his days sleeping by the fire, eyes closed, paws moving, because he's still a young dog in his dreams. How can you dream if you don't have a soul?