“She learned that an act intended to express love could have nothing to do with it. That her heart and her body were different things.”

“Every few weeks she would shut herself up in her room, put on her scribbling suit, and fall into a vortex, as she expressed it, writing away at her novel with all her heart and soul, for till that was finished she could find no peace.”

“The worst thing a boy can do is ignore a girl when she's loving you with all her heart.”

“Not a single sentence could move her heart. Not a story, a novel or even a poem. Even if she really had a heart, she could not love.”

“Daydreams were dangerous because they made her wish for things she could never have.”

“Stella is theatrical royalty who instills in her students a sense of the nobility of acting. She dares her students to act, to lift their bodies and their voices, to be larger than themselves, to love language and ideas.”

“He loved her because it was his nature to do so, but there were times when he could not endure her love for him. There were times when it became nothing but pure idiot mystery…”

“Mom loved my brother more. Not that she didn't love me - I felt the wash of her love every day, pouring over me, but it was a different kind, siphoned from a different, and tamer, body of water. I was her darling daughter; Joseph was her it.”

“She's gonna listen to her heart.
It's gonna tell her what to do.
She might need a lot of loving,
But she don't need you.”

“He treasured her, treasured her tears, treasured her love for others. Her heart might even be big enough to fill that empty space in his own chest. Perhaps she could be his heart as well.”