Catherine Ryan Hyde

[Grace talking to Billy.] "It's like people who want to feel only happy but not sad," she said. "It never works. You either feel things or you don't. You don't get to pick and choose. At least, I don't think so.

There is no wrong way to perform an act of kindness.

I felt the kiss still there on my forehead. Literally. It was frozen there. I could still feel it. I wanted to bronze it, like people do with baby shoes. I wanted to mount it and hang it over my mantelpiece.

I have a number of questions. If I had half as many answers, I__ be in great shape.

Since we all know for a fact that we're all going to die, why don't we all treat each other like we could lose each other at any minute?

I don't think you feel much of anything anymore.

It__ just words. How can words be dangerous?___ou have a lot to learn about the world, baby girl. Nothing is more dangerous than words.___hat__ stupid. What about a gun? A gun can kill you dead.___nly your body,_ Billy said. __t can__ kill your soul. Words can kill your soul.

If you want to see a man come to his senses, try something like, Do you happen to carry a rubber in your wallet? Did I mention I'm not on the pill?

The most important thing I can add from my own observations is this: Knowing it started from unremarkable circumstances should be a comfort to us all. Because it proves that you don't need much to change the entire world for the better. You can start with the most ordinary ingridients. You can start with the world you've got.

I decided that not talking is like a litmus test for a real friend. You can just sit there and be. Not always be filling up the air with words

I've been known to write 10 pages a day for 10 days running before I take a breath. I am not a disciplined writer. I'm one of those people who laughingly call themselves inspirational writers, which basically means someone who has no control over their own creative process.

[There] was a time when a lot of people came to the door. The milkman. The iceman. The Fuller Brush man. Encyclopedia salesmen. There was a sense of interaction with the world that started right at your own front doorstep.

This is what we do. We do crazy shit because we're broken. That's who we are. That's what we do.

People die of love. I__ one of the few who__l admit it. That doesn__ mean it isn__ true.Take all the people who died yesterday, or last week, or last year. Subtract all the suicides and the so-called accidents of the brokenhearted. Take away the men who got blown away for being in the wrong bed at the wrong moment, the women in abusive marriages who died of cancer because they couldn__ find any other exit from their lives. All the AIDS deaths except from the needles and the transfusions, the ones they call the innocent victims. Like if you have sex, you__e guilty. Deserved just what you got.Now tell me who all you__e got left.Without love the world would be overpopulated, except that without love it wouldn__ be populated at all. Love giveth and love taketh away and all that crap. You__l probably say all those people died from the lack of love, but I say it__ two sides of the same coin. So it__ the same coin.

And then, every time I didn't see her, there was a fall involved. I thought about dancing on the fifth-floor ledge outside out apartment. Every train she wasn't on felt something like hitting the pavement from five floors up. So maybe my father was right about that. Maybe happiness and excitement really are dangerous things.

Ah, yes. That. The sin of being happy or excited. According to my father, we must guard carefully against such things. According to my father, these emotions are the equivalent of dancing on out fifth-floor window ledge. Clearly inviting a nasty fall.

[Rayleen talking to Billy.] "Grace is thriving here, and I dare anybody to challenge that. Anybody who has a problem with that can come take it up with me.""Thank God," Billy said, "because I really hate it when people come take things up with ME.

... even though it was beautiful and comfortable, and even though it was the world, it was also a little bit boring. No, wait. Maybe boring isn__ the right word. What__ the word I__ wanting here? Lonely. That__ it. It was a little bit lonely.