Quotes from Christina Baker Kline

Well, you're not exactly effervescent now, are you?" Vivian says. "But I saw you outside earlier when Jack dropped you off, and your face was"—Vivian lifts her knobby hands, splaying her fingers—"all lit up. You were talking up a storm." "Were you spying on me?" "Of course! How else am I going to find out anything about you?

The date was in your paperwork." Miss Larsen smiles, handing me a slice of currant bread. "My landlady made this." I look at her, not sure I understand. "For me?" "I mentioned that we had a new girl, and that your birthday was coming up. She likes to bake." The bread, dense and moist, tastes like Ireland. One bite and I am back in Gram's cottage, in front of her warm Stanley range.

Unwrapping the leftover currant bread at the Grotes' that evening, I tell them about my party. Mr. Grote snorts. "How ridiculous, celebrating a birth date. I don't even know the day I was born, and I sure can't remember any of theirs," he says, swinging his hand toward his kids. "But let's have that cake.

I think of these qualities as metaphorical, you know? So black magic is whatever leads people to the dark side—their own greed or insecurity that makes them do destructive things.

Dina listens to conservative talk radio, belongs to a fundamentalist Christian church, and has a "Guns don't kill people—abortion clinics do" bumper sticker on her car.

Her absence is a presence, ghostly and haunting, touching all who knew her. It is impossible that she disappeared, inconceivable that she will never return. She is at once nowhere and everywhere, a constant shadow, elusory and insubstantial, her life an unkept promise, a half-remembered dream.

Well, thanks," she says nonchalantly. "But does this mean I have to read it?" "Absolutely. There will be a quiz," Vivian says.

She pauses, hand on her hip. "Yes,

Looking closely at Molly's file, Lori the social worker settles on a stool. "So you'll be aging out of foster care in . . . let's see . . . you turned seventeen in January, so nine months. Have you thought about what you're going to do then?

Al trasladarse de un río a otro, los wabanakis tenían que acarrear sus canoas y el resto de sus posesiones. Todos conocían el valor de viajar ligero y comprendían que ello requería dejar atrás algunas cosas. El miedo, con frecuencia la carga más difícil de abandonar, era lo que más entorpecía el movimiento. BUNNY MCBRIDE, Women of the Dawn

Sometimes you don't look for perfect. Sometimes enough is the most you can hope for.

I didn't follow my heart, Angela. I followed my head. And when it comes down to it, the longing in the heart lingers. Do you want to know the truth?" I nod, though I'm not sure I do. "I wish I had not left. I did what I thought would save me from heartache, but in many ways it kept me from living.

Lori says, "Look at this. Your SATs are in the 600s. And you have a 3.8 average this semester. That's really good." "It's an easy school." "No, it isn't." "It's not that big a deal." "It is a big deal, actually. These are applying-to-college stats. Have you thought about that?" "No." "Why not?

I count a hundred steps and start again. My da used to say it's good to test your limits now and then, learn what the body is capable of, what you can endure. He said this when we were in the throes of sickness on the Agnes Pauline, and again in the bitter first winter in New York, when four of us, including Mam, came down with pneumonia. Test your limits. Learn what you can endure. I am doing that.

In Bangor, she'd had no incentive to do homework—her foster parents were partiers, and she'd come home from school to find a house full of drunks. In Spruce Harbor, there aren't so many distractions. Dina and Ralph don't drink or smoke, and they're strict. Jack has a beer now and then, but that's about it. And Molly discovered that she actually likes to study.

Molly is the opposite. So many things have gone wrong for her in her seventeen years that she's come to expect it. When something does go right, she hardly knows what to think.

It is marvelous to be young on a big city street.

At breakfast—lumpy oats with no sugar—when I ask how to get to school and what time I'm expected to be there, Mrs. Byrne looks at her husband and then back at me. She pulls her dark paisley scarf tight around her shoulders. "Dorothy, Mr. Byrne and I feel that you are not ready for school.

SEVERAL MINUTES LATER, MR. BYRNE PULLS INTO THE DRIVEWAY of a modest beige stucco house with brown trim. As soon as he turns off the car, Mrs. Byrne looks back at me and says, "We've decided on Dorothy.

she knew from experience that touch and weird is preferable to pathetic and vulnerable

Life's small details are the ones that interest me, anyway. The big questions are too hard to parse.

No substitute for the living, perhaps, but I wasn't given a choice. I could take solace in their presence or I could fall down in a heap, lamenting what I'd lost.

marrying Jim was like stepping into water the exact same temperature as the air. I barely had to adjust to the change.

Cavilo sobre el papel, tratando de derramar mi corazón en la página. Pero solo se me ocurren las mismas palabras, y espero que la profundidad del sentimiento que hay tras ellas les dé peso y sustancia. «Te amo. Te echo de menos. Ten cuidado.»