Quotes from Mary E. Pearson

He nodded. "You're right. It's probably for the best." Bitterness rose in my throat. I hated things being for the best. They never really were. It was a phrase that sugarcoated the leftover crumbs of our options.

We already had three steps behind us. "Hold on, Lia," I whispered. Hold on for me.

There are many ways to feed people.

I still cry on waking. I'm not sure why. I feel nothing. Nothing I can name, anyway. It's like breathing - something that happens over which I have no control. (6)

Sometimes you need to own one whole day. Maybe that's what makes you brave enough to face another.

When we lose a battle, we have to regroup and move forward again. Choose an alternate path if necessary. But if we dwell on every action we've taken, it will cripple us, and soon we'll take no action at all.

I understood the weight of promises, and Rafe's strength as a king mattered more to Morrighan now, than it ever had. It mattered to me. I stared out at the jagged line of forest, feeling the stinging irony of Rafe's choice: To help me and the kingdom of Morrighan survive, he had been forced to cut out my heart.

It's not an easy thing to tell the girl that you love more than life itself that you're going to marry someone else.

Percentages! Those are for economists, polls, and politicians. Percentages can't define your identity.

Do not pass a rose without stopping to smell it. It is a gift that may not always be there.

Yes, royals know how to do things beyond counting our twelve toes.

I know hundreds of miles separate us. I know you have your endless duties here and I have mine in Dalbreck. But we've done the impossible, Lia. If we can find a way to end centuries of animosity between the kingdoms … surely … we can find a way for us.

Was this what families did? Bared their souls in front of an entire room of people? Their confessions left me raw. These were the kinds of conversations I didn't know how to have.

I don't care what mistakes I made or what mistakes you made. I'd make every single one again, if that was the only way to be with you

I felt something wet trickle down the side of my face. I reached up and swiped the salty wetness away. How quaint. How very quaint. Like believing some things last forever. A tear. As if that could make a difference.

What had her life been like in Venda? Or maybe, more precisely, what had they done to her? She was not the result of happy, content parents. It was like she'd been held prisoner in a cellar her whole life. She flinched at sun and an open sky. As soon as we hit the Heethe plateau, she kept her eyes straight ahead on some distant point, her focus like steel, her shoulders rigid, like she carried a heavy pack on her back.

One small changed family doesn't calculate into a world that has been spinning for a billion years. But one small change makes the world spin differently in a billion ways for one family.

It had always been the laughter that needled through me, a repeated stitch that surfaced over and over again.....Laughter reveals in the same way a sigh or a glance does. It's an unintentional language. Worry, fear, deceit - they hide in the things unsaid.

I used to be someone. Someone named Jenna Fox. That's what they tell me. But I am more than a name. More than they tell me. More than the facts and statistics they fill me with. More than the video clips they make me watch. More . But I'm not sure what.

Ragged clothes?" He grabbed my hand and examined it. "Chipped nails? Those aren't enough to disguise what's inside. You'll always be you, Lia. You can't run from that.

Seconds could change everything. Seconds could erase one path and send you reeling down another.

Snow. I wondered what it felt like. Aunt Bernette said it could be both soft and hard, cold and hot. It stung and burned when the wind pelted it through the air, and it was a gentle cold feather when it drifted down in lazy circles from the sky. I couldn't imagine it being so many things, and I wondered if she had taken license with her story as Father always claimed. I couldn't stop thinking of it. Snow.

When you think you're at the end of your rope, give it three more days. And then another three. Sometimes you'll find the rope is longer than you thought.

Observing and understanding are two different things.