A Corner of White

And then something happened. It was a fragment of time, a breath of time. It was like being in a car in pouring rain and driving under an overpass, and for just that second there is a profound, powerful sense of reprieve- the utter silence of non-rain.

This is what I want you all to do. I want you to open a new document and type up a list of three problems in your life. Not the universe's life - your own. Underneath, type the solutions." "If we know the solutions," said Belle, "they're not problems." "Exactly," said Denny. "You do know the answers to most of your problems. Somewhere deep inside, you know.

Who knows if all our brains are inventing the same thing? I mean, how do we know that the thing YOUR eyes see and call "red" is the same thing that I call "red"?

Early on, when they'd just started home schooling together, he'd written a note on the margin of her page: "What's your star sign?" She'd turned to him, "What does my star sigh?" and he'd seen how much she'd liked the idea that she owned a star, and that it sighed; he'd seen in her eyes that her mind was rushing through the possible words that it could sigh. It's true that his handwriting was bad: the "n" looked a lot like an "h." But when he's crossed it out and written "sign," underlining the "n" three times, a vagueness had wandered onto her face, and she'd thought for a moment, then said, "Pisces," and smiled.

Where was she now, the girl with the thunderstorm heart?

Madeleine Tully turned fourteen yesterday, but today she did not turn anything. Oh, wait. She turned a page.

Ah, even sitting here on my front porch, looking out over the fields, there's a part of me aches to see him walking. To conjure him out of the sunlight in the distance. The shape of my dad, I can almost see it, crossing the field toward me. Come to put his arm around me, reach out an arm to my mother as well, and I'll close my eyes and just breathe.

Here come the colours of Madeleine, thought Jack, and the colours went right through his bloodstream now, sailing on tiny boats — spinnakers fixed with little toothpicks.

If you’re looking pretty and your hair’s all shiny, and there’s a glint in your eye, and you say sorry like you mean it, and then kiss me on the mouth and let your hand kind of slip under my shirt so it’s on my back, well, I’d sure forgive and forget.

You’ve loved with intensity and passion, and have learned to hide your heartache, learned to press your handkerchief back into your pocket and pretend that you are okay.

Where are they now? she thought. Her iPod, her iPhone, her iPad, the I-ness of her life? Her mind stretched around in its memories, searching for her things: She saw her phone on the hotel bedside table in Paris; her iPad in her Louis Vuitton urban satchel; her iPod slipping from her pocket in the restaurant, the night before she ran away.

Could you just gather your shock and confusion into a little handkerchief-size and save it for later.

Surely that couldn't be the end of her first kiss? It seemed sort of pointless, to do that once without doing it again.

The rumors had started right away, and Elliot, hollow with shock, had felt their poison pouring into him.