Sara Gruen

How hard can it be to find a girl and an elephant for Christ's sake?

I want her to melt into me, like butter on toast. I want to absorb her and walk around for the rest of my days with her encased in my skin.I want.

It seems there's nothing so good or pure it cant be taken without a moment's notice. And then in the end, it all gets taken anyway.

He only had the imperfect medium of words.

The person following is never in control, which she knows full well and which is exactly why she does it.

When I first submerged my feet into frigid water, they hurt so badly I yanked them out again. I persisted, dunking them for longer and longer periods, until the cold finally blistered.

Is where you're from the place you're leaving or where you have roots?

Sometimes when you get older _ and I__ not talking about you, I__ talking generally, because everyone ages differently _ things you think on and wish on start to seem real. And then you believe them, and before you know it they__e part of your history, and if someone challenges you on them and says they__e not true _ why, then you get offended because you can__ remember the first part. All you know is that you__e been called a liar.

When will people learn that just because you can make something doesn__ mean you should?

Sometimes when you get older__nd I'm not talking about you, I'm talking generally, because everyone ages differently__hings you think on and wish on start to seem real. And then you believe them, and before you know it they're a part of your history, and if someone challenges you on them and says they're not true__hy, then you get offended.

You do right by me, I'll show you a life most suckers can't even dream of.

With a secret like that, at some point the secret itself becomes irrelevant. The fact that you kept it does not.

Don't mind Russ," he says. "He's a good kid underneath all those holes, although it's a wonder he doesn't spring a leak when he drinks

Even as your body betrays you, your mind denies it.

To say that I wished I wasn't there would be a ludicrous understatement, but I'd only ever had the illusion of choice: We have to do this, Hank had said. It's for Ellis. To refuse would have been an act of calculated cruelty. And so, because of my husband's war with his father and their insane obsession with a mythical monster, we'd crossed the Atlantic at the very same time a real madman, a real monster, was attempting to take over the world for his own reasons of ego and pride.

I scan the room. Catherine is writing quickly, her light brown hair falling over her face. She is left-handed, and because she writes in pencil her left arm is silver from wrist to elbow.

How is it that everyone on this train has so much alcohol?""We always head to Canada at the beginning of the season," she says taking her seat again. "Their laws are much more civilized. Cheers.

The whole thing's illusion, [Jacob], and there's nothing wrong with that. It's what people want from us. It's what they expect.