“Because I'm your mother, that's why.”

“I suppose even monsters can be afraid of the dark.”

“Up here it seems we have only the stars, but even they seem small in the midst of that terrifying night sky...I suppose even monsters can be afraid of the dark.”

“But while the thought of being dead seemed appealing, the actual act of dying did not.”

“Because I'm your mother, that's why.”

“The whole world had given up on love anyway and clung instead to its malformed cousins: lust, narcissism, self-interest.”

“She is the glorious reincarnation of every woman ever loved.”

“She didn't see it because when it came to love, she saw what she wanted to see.”

“Fate. As a child, that word was often my only companion. It whispered to me from dark corners during lonely nights. It was the song of the birds in spring and the call of the wind through bare branches on a cold winter afternoon. Fate. Both my anguish and my solace. My escort and my cage.”

“The days she was finally brought out of the house would later be remembered as a day when shadows seemed blacker, as if something more lingered in those darkened spaces.”

“children betrayed their parents by becoming their own people”