It’s the worst sort of snobbery to condemn a book without reading it, merely because it’s popular.

Secrets are my profession. I know them inside and out. What separates me from someone I’m lying to isn’t the lie. It’s that I know I’m lying. It’s a pane of glass – they can’t see it, but I don’t forget it’s there.

The people in this town are a regular Greek chorus, only with less Christian charity.

The human heart is like a big mess of embroidery silks, and the more you pull, the more they tangle. The thing is, the threads have only got one end, if that. You can’t sort them all out into colors. You just pick the ones you want and hold one to them as best you can.

She set aside the Lively St. Lemeston Intelligencer with a sigh and picked up the Times. “No murders in Sussex this week.” Every Tuesday, when the town newspaper came out, they met at the Makepeaces’ coffeehouse to go through all the week’s papers for interesting crimes.

I don’t mean to sound puffed up, but I think – I believe, anyway, that there were boys who might have wanted to court me if I’d given them any encouragement. But I was shy, and none of them seemed to have so great an advantage over books as to be worth the effort.

People say things die in winter, but it isn’t true, mostly. They just gather their strength.

She was the kind of art that was so valuable it wasn't even for sale, and she smiled when she saw Ash. His pulse jumped.

Drek. He was definitely in love with her now.

Secrets are my profession. I know them inside and out. What separates me from someone I'm lying to isn't the lie. It's that I know I'm lying. It's a pane of glass---they can't see it, but I don't forget it's there.