Vale Berumen

“I am but paper. Brittle and thin. I am held up to the sun, and it shines right through me. I get written on, and I can never be used again. These scratches are a history. They’re a story. They tell things for others to read, but they only see the words, and not what the words are written upon. I am but paper, and though there are many like me, none are exactly the same. I am parched parchment. I have lines. I have holes. Get me wet, and I melt. Light me on fire, and I burn. Take me in hardened hands, and I crumple. I tear. I am but paper. Brittle and thin.”
― T.J. Klune, The House in the Cerulean Sea

“Our family histories are simply stories. They are myths we create about the people who came before us, in order to make sense of ourselves.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Malibu Rising

“It's the little things, I expect. Little treasures we find without knowing their origin. And they come when we least expect them. It's beautiful, when you think about it.”
― T.J. Klune, The House in the Cerulean Sea

“Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives--or to find strength in a very long one.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue