I was just telling Claire about a guy I met in bread class. I hate him, but he could be my soul mate.

— Sarah Addison Allen

Jack thought anyone who read couldn't be all that bad.

— Sarah Addison Allen

José?” She heard her mother’s voice in the hall, then the thud of her cane as she came closer. “Please don’t tell her I’m here,” the woman in the closet said, with a strange sort of desperation. Despite the cold outside, she was wearing a cropped white shirt and tight dark blue jeans that sat low, revealing a tattoo of a broken heart on her hip. Her hair was bleached white-blond with about an inch of silver-sprinkled dark roots showing. Her mascara had run and there were black streaks on her cheeks. She looked drip-dried, like she’d been walking in the rain, though there hadn’t...

— Sarah Addison Allen

José shook her head, thinking, if Della Lee were a candy, she would be a SweeT art. Not the hard kind that broke your teeth, the chewy kind, the kind you had to work on and mull over, your eyes watering and your lips turning up into a smile you didn't want to give.

— Sarah Addison Allen

Just as she was about to turn, she caught a whiff of something sweet. She inhaled deeply, instinctively wanting to savor it, but then she nearly choked when it landed on her tongue with a bitter taste. It was so strong she actually made a face. That, her grandmother had described to her once after making a particularly bad lemon cream pie, was exactly what regret tasted like.

— Sarah Addison Allen

Life is about experience... You can't hold on to everything

— Sarah Addison Allen

Like magic, she felt him getting nearer, felt it like a pull in the pit of her stomach. It felt like hunger but deeper, heavier. Like the best kind of expectation. Ice cream expectation. Chocolate expectation.

— Sarah Addison Allen

Love always hurts. That’s one thing I know you know. But it’s worth it. That’s what you don’t know. Yet.

— Sarah Addison Allen

Mary had become anxious in her old age, and she hated being away from the house for long. She'd hold the girls' hands tightly and calm herself by telling them what she would make for first frost that year-pork tenderloins with nasturtiums, dill potatoes, pumpkin bread, chicory coffee. And the cupcakes, of course, with all different frostings, because what was first frost without frosting? Claire had loved it all, but Sydney had only listened when their grandmother talked of frosting. Caramel, rosewater-pistachio, chocolate almond.

— Sarah Addison Allen

Most locals knew who Della Lee was. She waitressed at a greasy spoon called Eat and Run, which was tucked far enough outside the town limits that the ski-crowd tourists didn’t see it. She haunted bars at night. Furthermore, she was probably in her late thirties, maybe ten years older than José, and she was rough and flashy and did whatever she wanted—no reasonable explanation required. “Della Lee Baker, what are you doing in my closet?” “You shouldn’t leave your window unlocked. Who knows who could get in?” Della Lee said, single-handedly debunking the long-held belief that if you dotted your...

— Sarah Addison Allen