And then there was Jacob, who stepped closer to me and then waited, letting me decide whether I would take the next step. Balanced there in indecision, it was as if the Twisted Sisters were before me, shaking their pom-poms, asking: But what is fair about staying with a guy who is ashamed to be seen with you? What was so miraculous about a relationship that was based more on my gratitude than mutual respect.

There is a time to study a map passionately, obsessively. To see where you’ve gone, where others have gone before you. To commit to memory every obstacle, every danger. Shakespeare had a term for this obsession: mappery.

I just told Max flatly, "I had laser surgery last week to lighten my birthmark," as if it was no big deal.Oh yeah?" he said. Unexpectedly, Max swiveled around, yanked his pants down.The last thing I thought I had wanted to see tonight was Merc walking out the door. I was wrong. It was this stranger's rear end. "Please don't tell me this is one of those stripping telegrams?

From her dubious tone alone, I could see how Karin had no idea how terrifying words spoken quietly could be. How words chosen precisely to wreak maximum damage ticked like a bomb in your head, but exploded in your heart hours later, leaving you scarred and changed.

Maybe that was the problem," Jacob said softly. "Don't we all need to feel needed? That we'd be missed if we were gone?

Beauty—real everlasting beauty—lives not on our faces, but in our attitude and our actions. It lives in what we do for ourselves and for others.

You know, sometimes the most direct route isn't the right one. - Jacob

I understood now: how nothing looked more beautiful than that scar of his, that borderline that separated what Jacob could have been had he stayed in that orphanage from who he is.

I wondered about her chicken-and-egg relationship with Dad. Which came first? Her helplessness or his controlling?

You raze the old to raise the new.