“Beside me, Philippe and Meg hold hands. He murmurs something that sounds like, "my dear leetle mongoose." I wish he'd turn back into a frog and hop away.”

“A memory came to me. One time, in middle school, a famous author came to talk to our class and give a writing workshop. One of the things she told us about writing a novel was that the story should be about what the main character wants. Dorothy wants to go home to Kansas. George Milton wants a farm of his own. Amelia Sedley wants to marry her darling George and live happily ever after. The end of the story, according to the famous author, is when the character either gests what he wants or realizes he’s never going to get it. Or sometimes, she said, like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind, realizes she doesn’t actually want what she thought she wanted all along. pg. 324 of Bewitching”

“Sometimes it also helps to have a bit less pride.”

“It would be so great to have someone my own age to talk to, even if it was just about books.”

“I wrote poetry, journals, and, especially, plays for the neighborhood kids to perform. I had an ordinary, happy childhood. Nothing much was going on, but I had fun.”

“Everyone can use a little beauty.”

“Of course, maybe I'd end up like one of those crazy old people with, like, sixty cats. And one day, the neighbors would complain about the smell, and it would turn out I'd died and the cats had eaten me.Still, it might be nice to have a cat.”

“The whole thing was like a divorce. When we divided everything up, Courtney got my dignity, and I got the heartache.”

“What happened to romance? sappy soppy longhand love letters.”

“Sometimes, unexpected things can happen.”

“Shakespeare's great."Duh. Shakespeare's cool, man.”