Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

"And when you get down to it, Lily, that is the only purpose grand enough for a human life. Not just to love but to persist in love."

"You've been halfway living your life for too long. May was saying that when it's time to die, go ahead and die, and when it's time to live, live. Don't sort-of-maybe live, but live like you're going all out, like you're not afraid."

"The whole problem with people is they know what matters but they don't choose it. ~Secret Lives of Bees"

"Every person on the face of the earth makes mistakes, Lily. Every last one. We're all so human. Your mother made a terrible mistake, but she tried to fix it.''Good night,' I said, and rolled onto my side.'There is nothing perfect,' August said from the doorway. 'There is only life."

"Look at her good, Lily," she said, "'cause you're seeing the end of something."I am"Yes, you are, because as long as people have been on this earth, the moon has been a mystery to us. Think about it. She is strong enough to pull the oceans, and when she dies away, she always comes back again. My mama used to tell me Our Lady lived on the moon and that I should dance when her face was bright and hibernate when it was dark." August stared at the sky a long moment and then, turning toward the house, said, "Now it won't ever be the same, not after they've landed up there and walked around on her. She'll be just one more science project."

"I can't think of anything I'd rather have more than somebody lovin' me."

"I worried so much about how I looked and whether I was doing things right, I felt half the time I was impersonating a girl instead of really being one."

"It takes so much energy to keep things at bay."

"Probably one or two moments in your whole life you will hear a dark whispering spirit, a voice coming from the center of things. It will have blades for lips and will not stop until it speaks the one secret thing at the heart of it all. Kneeling on the floor, unable to stop shuddering, I heard it plainly. It said, You are unlovable..."

"My mother's life was way too heavy for me."

"Every living creature on the earth is special. You want to be the one that puts an end to one of them?"

"It occurred to them for the first time in their lives that what's divine can come in dark skin."

"Up until then I'd thought that white people and colored people getting alone was the big aim, but after that I decided everybody being colorless together was a better plan."

"As I squatted on the grass at the edge of the woods, the pee felt hot between my legs. I watched in puddle in the dirt, the smell of it rising into the night. There was no difference between my piss and June's. That's what i thought when I looked at the dark circle on the ground. Piss is Piss."

"Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here."

"I was wishing I had a story like that one to live inside me with so much loudness you could pick it up on a stethoscope."

"Have you ever noticed the more you try not to think, the more elaborate your thinking episodes get?"

"I'm tired of carrying around the weight of the world. I'm just going to lay it down now. It's my time to die, and it's your time to live. Don't mess it up."

"August: You know, somethings don't matter that much...like the color of a house... But lifting a person's heart--now that matters. The whole problem with people--"Lily: They don't know what matters and what doesn't... August:... They know what matters, but they don't choose it... The hardest thing on earth is to choose what matters."

"In the photograph by my bed my other is perpetually smiling on me. I guess I have forgiven us both, although sometimes in the night my dreams will take me back to the sadness, and I have to wake up and forgive us again."