Sarah Addison Allen

We decided to become a society of women, a club to make sure women were protected. The club was something important back then. Not like it is today.

Why were girls in such a hurry to grow up? Agatha would never understand. Childhood was magical. Leaving it behind was a magnificent loss.

There was a strange but universal understanding among women. On some level all women knew, they all understood, the fear of being outnumbered, of being helpless. It throbbed in their chests when they thought about the times they left stores and were followed. The knocks on their car windows as they were sitting alone at red lights, and strangers asking for rides. Having too much to drink and losing their ability to be forceful enough to just say no. Smiling at strange men coming on to them, not wanting to hurt their feelings, not wanting to make a scene. All women remembered these things, even if they had never happened to them personally. It was a part of their collective unconscious.

She looked like autumn, when leaves turned and fruit ripened.

...Agatha had declared that her friendship to Georgie still existed, as if it was a living, breathing thing, something that came to life the moment it happened and didn't just go away because they no longer acknowledged it.

But that would leave Paxton to fend for herself, and the last thing any woman wanted in this kind of situation was to look around and see all the people who could help her doing nothing.

It felt as though they were the only people in the world, two young women about to bury the symbol of their helplessness, as if that's all it would take to make them whole again.

But relying on one person for your every need is so dangerous. One set of hands isn't enough to keep you from falling

Did I ever tell you about the day I finally let go of him? That day that led me to you?

My favorite books are the ones that make me smile for hours after reading them. I want that for my readers, for the sweetness to linger. Sort of like chocolate, but without the calories.

Who I am, what I am, is the culmination of a lifetime of reading, a lifetime of stories. And there are still so many more books to read. I'm a work in progress.

Once he'd asked, "Don't you want to read? There are hundreds of books in the sitting room."She had laughed and said, "I've read them all. I want to remember them the way they were. If I read them now, the endings will have changed.

I was just telling Claire about a guy I met in bread class. I hate him, but he could be my soul mate.

It looked like the world was covered in a cobbler crust of brown sugar and cinnamon.

On the day the tree bloomed in the fall, when its white apple blossoms fell and covered the ground like snow, it was tradition for the Waverleys to gather in the garden like survivors of some great catastrophe, hugging one another, laughing as they touched faces and arms, making sure they were all okay, grateful to have gotten through it.

Some of Bay's fondest memories were of lying under the apple tree in the summer while Claire gardened and the apple tree tossed apples at her like a dog trying to coax its owner into playing catch.

It was hard not to feel sorry for a life that had no purpose of its own... His only purpose, it seemed, was to come into her mother's life in order to send her home. For that, Bay decided, she would be grateful.For the rest, though, she wondered if she would ever be able to forgive him. She hoped she wouldn't remember him long enough to find out.

Eby wanted to say so much to her. She wanted to say that waking up is the most important part of grieving, that so many women in their family failed to do it, and she was proud of Kate for fighting her way back. But Eby didn't say anything. She could fix a lot of things, but family wasn't one of them. It was one of the hardest things she'd ever had to come to terms with.