I told my mother he looked like a deflated balloon. Greta said he looked like a small gray moth wrapped in a spider's web. That's because everything about Greta is more beautiful, even the way she says things.

— Carol Rifka Brunt

It's hard to do that, to decide to believe one thing over another.

— Carol Rifka Brunt

It's the most unhappy people who want to stay alive, because they think they haven't done everything they want to do. They think they haven't had enough time. They feel they've been shortchanged.

— Carol Rifka Brunt

I used to think maybe I wanted to become a falconer, and now I'm sure of it, because I need to figure out the secret. I need to work out how to keep things flying back to me instead of always flying away.

— Carol Rifka Brunt

Maybe I was destined to forever fall in love with people I couldn’t have. Maybe there’s a whole assortment of impossible people waiting for me to find them. Waiting to make me feel the same impossibility over and over again.

— Carol Rifka Brunt

Maybe you had to be dying to finally get to do what you wanted. I fidgeted around with the puzzle pieces for a while longer, but I wasn't lucky. Nothing seemed to fit without a lot of work. Then I had this thought: What if it was enough to realize that you would die someday, that none of this would go on forever? Would that be enough?

— Carol Rifka Brunt

My mother gave me a disappointed look. Then I gave her one back. Mine was for everything, not just the sandwich.

— Carol Rifka Brunt

Nothing had changed. I was the stupid one again. I was the girl who never understood who she was to people.

— Carol Rifka Brunt

People didn’t know everything then. There were things people had never seen before. Places nobody had ever been. You could make up a story and people would believe it...also maybe it seems like it would be okay not to be perfect. Nobody was perfect back then. Just about everyone was defective, and most people had no choice except to stay that way.

— Carol Rifka Brunt

That's the difference between you and Greta. She has better things to do. She gets involved in clubs, activities. Furthermore, she has friends. But you? You slump around in that room of yours--

— Carol Rifka Brunt