- “What’s funny about the things that stay the same is that if you look close—really close—you start to see how they’ve changed, too. Or maybe you changed right along with them. Like you and everything else moved a little each day—but nobody said a word about it, so it feels like nobody moved at all.” (The Quiet Things That Stay)
- “Sometimes the bravest thing isn’t wrestling a monkey or sneaking through the forest at night. Sometimes it’s walking through a door you used to be too scared to open. And finding out it still opens just fine.” (Paper Boats in the Soft Light)
- “The silent road always has more branches on the ground, pits, holes, thorns, nettles, brambles, and tangly vines—plus wasp nests in the trees, under the leaves, or dangling from the darkest corners. So, yes, it’s tempting to choose the other one—the smooth, easy-looking path that keeps saying, Come here, come here. But if you pick the thorny road—the one that doesn’t call you in—a strange thing happens. You get scratched, you get bruised, you get muddy … but the deeper you go, the better you feel.” (Paper Boats in the Soft Light)
- “You imagine the worst things first—even when there’s no sign they’ll happen.” (Dark Chocolate and Persimmons, Mrs. Karabach to Gilly)
- “When you have too many thoughts storming inside, always try to choose the one that makes you feel calmer—and ditch the troubling one. If you practice that, Gilly, I promise you, everything will start to feel a little lighter.” (Dark Chocolate and Persimmons, Mrs. Karabach to Gilly)
- “Some stories we never hear can have more effect on our lives—and on the lives of those around us—than the ones we do. Isn’t that the strangest kind of magic?” (Bad Star Constellation)
- “The one reader you truly owe everything to—the only one who really understands what you’re writing, and why, and for who—is you. And if you ever turn your back on that loyalty to yourself, then every word you ever write down will be just a puncake lie.” (A Story for Me)
- “His whole heart was with Oggy. It’s also my reason to believe he didn’t actually poison his new brother. We were just caught in the panic of it all.” (The Song I Never Sang, Gilly about Monty)
- “Oggy will return. No need to worry. But the crying—that’ll be both your friend and your enemy. Don’t fight it. Accept it. Please. For your own good.” (The One Called Nine, Nine to Gilly)
- “No suffering for free.” Which means that if you have to suffer—like from a body ache or your soul being tormented—one day, somehow, it’ll turn into something good. Something surprising. Something worth it.” (No Free Lunch)
- “Because when you read a book, your brain doesn’t think you’re alone or lost. It thinks you’re part of something that’s moving, changing, doing things. So in that way, reading is its own kind of compass. It points you somewhere—you’re just not sure if that somewhere is north, or maybe someplace warmer.” (Writing from the Bottom of the Forest)
- “What a horrible sentence to write. But I wrote it—and ever since everything that happened, I’ve decided not to erase what I write. Just learn to read it the way it is, until it stops hurting so much.” (The Way It Is, Gilly about Monty’s aim)
- “And how, even from a distance, he felt more like home than almost anyone else. Which is a strange thing to realize while holding hands with your best friend.” (Three Popsicles, Gilly about Monty)