Quotes from Katherine Howe

And so, when she fell ill, it seemed a natural thing to me." "But I don't understand. I thought you said she was pretending.

standing in front of ground zero for the Mystery Illness, and it looks like . . ." ". . . where some of the North Shore's most pampered daughters have . . ." ". . . are asking if the HPV vaccine could possibly . . ." ". . . side effect of an age of oversexualized childhood, when girls are . . ." I paused, frowning, before shoving my way inside.

I'm always intrigued by the different ways people decide what to believe. I mean, look at this -- they're taken from all over the place. Celtic knots, Eastern philosophy, the New Age. Past and present collapsed into a buffet of equivalent options all in pursuit of the divine.

Usually her reserve kept people -- men especially -- at a distance, but Sam was different. She felt at ease with him, comfortable. More herself. How was it possible to be more yourself when you were with another person?

New York was for people too hungry for life to be anywhere else.

Woodenly written, ineptly footnoted. It was so bad it was starting to make Connie angry. There often came a moment in grading when Connie struggled with anger at her students. That was usually when it was time to stop for the night.

The right words don't come... the right words usually don't for me. I mostly experience the world in images. I wish I could show the film I'd taken of this girl in my mind.

I want to live New York City. Not live IN it, but live IT. I want to be alive right here, right now.

Going to the Upper East Side is like taking a trek to the Himalayas practically.

Ghosts are both remnants of history and witnesses to it.

An illusion of weakness, masking phenomenal strength.

I want to lie in the dust,

Ghost stories are how we forgive houses for daring to outlive us.

Memories while true are impermanent, while film, while permanent is untrue.

I'm no one, and I'm nothing.

And I hated how most of us had grown up together, so that we never had a chance to really change. We could try, but people just kept seeing an earlier version of us. We each had our own narrative, our own character we were required to perform in the daily play that was "St. Joan's Academy for Girls,

Liz used to joke that when she was an undergrad at Cornell, she and the girls in her sorority would play "Homeless? Or tenured professor?" while driving around the streets of Ithaca. It was a hard game.

One stupid quiz about one stupid thing that happened three hundred years ago to a bunch of people nobody cared about, that didn't have anything to do with real life.

Enough. What does "enough" feel like? When happiness and contentment happen, how do you know?

But she liked having it. A fob for the chain. Or a talisman, maybe. A reminder that secrets can sometimes be discovered when one looks closely at ordinary things.

Tittibe's gaze floats up to the ceiling of the meetinghouse, as though hoping to find the answer scrawled there. When she brings her eyes back to rest on the judge, she says, her voice clear and true, "A yellow bird. And she would have given me one.

Aristotle said to Alexander, that a mind well furnished was more beautiful than a body richly arrayed. What can be more odious to man, and offensive to God, than ignorance. Reginald Scott, A Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1654

Doctor Dowers," teased Connie. "Listen," said Liz, "after all the crap I had to take in grad school, you bet everyone's calling me Doctor. I'll get my cabdriver to do it if I can. I'll make my mother do it.

Connie? We are ready for you." It was Professor Silva. Connie sat up. For a split second she faced the certainty that the exam had gone horribly, she had failed, she would have to leave school. But then Connie saw Janine's kind face, framed with ruddy tangles of hair, break into a delighted grin. She threaded an arm around Connie's waist and whispered, "We're celebrating at Abner's after this!" And she knew that it was really about to be over.