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1 " There's no cure for being who you truly are. "
― Carrie Anne Noble , The Mermaid's Sister
2 " Today is all we have, my dears. Today is all we ever have. "
3 " Sometimes the plainest of things conceal the most unimaginable wonders, "
4 " I feel as if part of me is now made of sorrow, some new and tender organ that will pain me until the day I die. I know Maren is safe and well, and made beautiful in all ways. My grief is not for her but for myself—because I miss her . . . because she is missing from me. "
5 " Evil and charismatic. A most dangerous combination. "
6 " Infatuation is easy to cure, if that is his problem. A little dandelion root, a sprig of hare-foot plant, a shaving of nutmeg, and a drop of moonrose nectar mixed into a cup of chamomile. True love is another story, I’m afraid. There is no cure for true love. "
7 " But you can’t erase a thing by not acknowledging it. "
8 " One chicken cannot sit on the whole world’s eggs. "
9 " There is no cure for being who you truly are. "
10 " I do not feel brave. I feel a hundred years old and very, very tired—yet wide awake with worry. "
11 " Your truth is not the truth,” I say. "
12 " I am losing her. I wish I would not. But wishing gets you nothing. "
13 " I want to lie down on the sandy ground and go to sleep for a hundred years, to wake up after the world has righted itself somehow. "
14 " Could I ever be as brave as the dream version of myself? I do not believe so. "
15 " Can you not hear the low bellows of the whales speaking to their children in the deepest deep?” No, I think. I hear nothing but the sound of my heart breaking into a million tiny pieces, each smaller than a single grain of sand. "
16 " The world will continue, as it has for thousands upon thousands of years. We will live without our dear Maren. We will finish growing up and we will work and play and love. The sun and moon will take turns shining, clouds will sail across the skies, and rain will wash the earth. I will touch snow and smell flowers. Perhaps someday I will have a child, and I will tell her of her mermaid auntie. Or perhaps I will become a stork and fly wherever the winds take me. "
17 " What I choose to believe does not change what is true. "
18 " There is no cure for true love. "
19 " Wanting is as bad as wishing, I suppose, if the one who wants does nothing. "
20 " O’Neill told me that Scarff once threw a gold pocket watch into the gaping mouth of an alligator because the incessant ticking drove him to distraction. "