Julianna Baggott

But there it is: Everyone is alone, for life, and maybe that's not such a bad thing.

But she's still afraid that the more she misses him--his face, his skin, the way he looked at her--and the more hope she has that she'll see him again, the more she has to lose.

She let him go once. Every day demands that she release him over and over again.

Here, falling in love can be an event, a proclamation without acknowledging that everyone you love could die an awful death, that loving someone is an acceptance of impending loss.

I've never thought there was anything I could hope to get by praying for it.

When I first met you, I thought we were made for each other even though we seemed like opposites in some ways and we fought. But now...""What?""Now I feel like we weren't made for each other. We're making each other__nto the people we should become. Do you know what I mean?

What does it mean to be Catholic and not a Catholic? I feel adrift, homeless. My Catholic imagination allows me to see the soul as a lit breath, seeking the divine. It persists.

I'm a writer of faith who worries about the intolerance of religion. I look at the past and fear we haven't learned from it. I believe that humanity is capable of evil as well as great acts of courage and goodness. I have hope. Deep down, I believe in the human spirit, although sometimes that belief is shaken.

Even if their supplies of love are finite, they've figured out that life is, too, and they're no longer rationing.

Weakness, like not being able to bury the past. Weakness, like not giving up hope when you know you should.

Sometimes the only way to fix a mistake- is to make it twice.

Love is a luxury. It's something that people are allowed to indulge in when they're not simply trying to survive and keep other people alive.

...even a poisoned, desolate childhood can be missed.

If home isn't a place, what is it?''A feeling.

Our stories are what we have,_ Our Good Mother says. __ur stories preserve us. we give them to one another. Our stories have value. Do you understand?

I feel too much. It's like being drummed to death from within. You know?