Quotes from Rene Denfeld

there is no game in her smile. There is warmth and kindness and something that looks like steel. You can tell me anything, her eyes say, because I will see the beauty in everything you say.

He knows when she passes, a grief will rip through him unlike anything he has ever known. Preparing for it doesn't help. He just knows it will come. It is like realizing you are sailing a boat across an ocean and soon you will find the other shore—it will be just you and acres of dry, blinding white sand. There may be trees on that island, and sun, and food, but none of it will feel or taste right, because you will stand there and realize: I am alone.

You can get a taste of an idea inside you, and the next thing you know, it won't leave. Until you do something about it.

believe we can carry both the pain of the victim and the truth of the accused without doing disservice to either.

Remember when we used to share our secrets?" he asked. The moon captured a handsome face, full of longing. His dark hair brushed his shoulders. "The Stone," she laughed. "I loved you then. I loved you no matter where you came from. No - scratch that." His voice floated up to her. "I loved you because you came from wherever it was. It must have been a magic place, to produce you.

The land beyond rose into dizzying mountains. Far across the way a frozen waterfall resembled a charging lion. The trees were shrouded in white, a vision of the heavens.

Deep in her secret heart, in the pure place she protects, she is afraid she will always be alone—that she will go through life without being known. And she will not survive that.

Naomi felt very small, hiking through this endless dark forest. Fresh snow dusted the ground.

Ideas are powerful things; we should take more care with them. I know there are some who would disagree - those who think ideas are like food they can taste and then spit out if they don't like it. But ideas are stronger than that. You can get a taste of an idea inside you, and the next think you know, it won't leave. Until you do something about it

In the years since, she had discovered the sacrament of life did not demand memory.

My soul left me when I was six. It flew away past a flapping curtain over a window. I ran after it, but it never came back. It left me alone on wet stinking mattresses. It left me alone in the choking dark. It took my tongue, my heart, and my mind.

guess?" Naomi sank into a chair. "Jerome," she

Not everyone likes a ceiling," her mommy said. "Some of us like the sky.

Her entire life she had been running from terrifying shadows she could no longer see—and in escape she ran straight into life. In the years since, she had discovered the sacrament of life did not demand memory. Like a leaf that drank from the morning dew, you didn't question the morning sunrise or the sweet taste on your mouth. You just drank.

It is usually people who pride themselves on their lack of sexism who are the first to insinuate that I box , as one woman acquaintance said, "to get male attention." That would have to be the most painful and time-consuming method to do so ever invented.

The ideal of maternal instinct can act as a barrier to acquiring tool women need to cope with children. If you really love your kids, the text of public conversation to mothers reads, you won't hit them. End of discussion. Who needs tools when instincts are supposedly doing your job for you?

After a time, it seemed that the world inside the books became my world. So when I thought of my childhood, it was dandelion wine and ice cream on a summer porch, like Ray Bradbury, and catching catfish with Huck Finn. My own memories receded and the book memories became the real memories, far more than the outside, far more even than in here. B

How odd it is, that the dead weigh more than the living. You would think it would be the opposite, but it isn't. I think it is because souls give bodies lightness and air. When the soul leaves, the body has nothing left and is desperate to return to the earth.

Each child she found was a molecule, a part of herself still remaining in the scary world she had left behind.

His mild efforts at curiosity had been rebuffed--not with coldness but with her single-minded focus on her cases. And yet he could sense something deeply vulnerable about her. It was that part of her that spoke to his soul. He wasn't a ledge talker for nothing.

Love wasn't about numbers, Naomi realized then. It wasn't about selling yourself or wanting anything in return. It wasn't about hoping for safety. It was just— That purr.

Their footsteps sound like the soft hush of rain over the stone floors.

It is meaning that drives most people forward in time, and it is meaning that reminds them of the past, so they know where they are in the universe.

The world is full of heartache," the detective said. Naomi could see the sadness he bore, too. "You got to carve out some happiness for yourself. Otherwise it will take you down.