Virginia C. Andrews

Love, how often that word came up in books over and over again. If you had wealth and health, and beauty and talent...you had nothing if you didn't have love. Love changed all that was ordinary into something giddy, powerful, drunken, enchanted.

There was a war going on in our house. A silent war that sounded no guns, and the bodies that fell were only wishes that died and the bullets were only words and the blood that spilled was always called pride.

After it's all over, the early childhood, a chain of birthdays woven with candlelight, piles of presents, voices of relatives singing and praising your promise and future, after the years of schooling, fitting yourself into different size desks, memorizing, reciting, reporting, and performing for jury after jury of teachers, counselors, and administrators, you still feel inadequate, alone, vulnerable, and naked in a world that can be unforgiving and terribly demanding.