“She was sad about what happened to Kostos. And someplace under that, she was sad that people like Bee and Kostos, who had lost everything, were still open to love, and she, who'd lost nothing, was not.”

“She is so lost in her sadness that she has no idea how visible it is.”

“… she had regained what I thought she had lost forever, the magical sadness which had drawn me to her, the thwarted look that had seemed to say, "Surely I was made for some other purpose than this?”

“she tapped her finger and nothing happened and she thought she had lost her magic, but it had only changed and it took her awhile to figure it out.”

“She was still waiting for him to come back to her, even though he wasn't going to. She was still holding out for something that wasn't going to happen. She was good at waiting. That seemed like a sad thing to be good at.”

“She has forgotten speech and language and the restlessness of thoughts, has forgotten what is even greater restlessness, this self, has forgotten herself-she, the lost woman, who is now lost in her Savior, who, lost in him, rests at his feet-like a picture. He speaks about her; he says: Her many sins are forgiven her, because she loved much. Although she is present, it is almost as if she were absent; it is almost as if he changed her into a picture, a parable.”

“She didn't like being twelve. It felt like someplace between who she'd been and who she was about to be. It felt like no place at all.”

“She wasn't bitter. She was sad, though. But it was a hopeful kind of sad. The kind of sad that just takes time.”

“Despereaux," she whispered.
And then she shouted it, "Despereaux!"
Reader, nothing is sweeter in this sad world than the sound of someone you love calling your name.
Nothing.”

“she was a girl who knew how to be happy even when she was sad”