Beth Ulerio

“Can you read?" the boy said at last.
"Of course," said Arrietty. "Can't you?"
"No," he stammered. "I mean--yes. I mean I've just come from India."
"What's that got to do with it?" asked Arrietty.
"Well, if you're born in India, you're bilingual. And if you're bilingual, you can't read. Not so well."
Arrietty stared up at him: what a monster, she thought, dark against the sky.
"Do you grow out of it?" she asked.
He moved a little and she felt the cold flick of his shadow.
"Oh yes," head said, "it wears off. My sisters were bilingual; now they aren't a bit. They could read any of those books upstairs in the schoolroom."
"So could I," said Arrietty quickly, "if someone could hold them, and turn the pages. I'm not a bit bilingual. I can read anything.”
― Mary Norton, Borrowers

“This evening I spied her in the back orchard. I decided to sacrifice one of my better old shirts and carried it out to her. The weather’s been warm of late. Buds on the apple trees are ready to burst. Usually by this time of the year, at that time of day, the back orchard is full of screaming children. Damut’s boys were the only two. They were on the terrace below her, running through the slanted sunlight, chasing each other around tree trunks. She stood above them, like a merlin watching rabbits play.”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“Did the poet use red to symbolize blood? Anger? Lust? Or is the wheelbarrow simply red because red sounded better than black?”
― Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why

“I needed to bring my own gifts to my new home, not resist them, not sway to and fro like the tidal waters of the lagoon, but rather chart my own course through the shallows like an experienced boatman.”
― Gina Buonaguro, The Virgins of Venice