The Secret Life of Bees

“There is nothing perfect,” August said from the doorway. “There is only life.”

He stood over me. “Deborah,” I heard him mumble. “You’re not leaving me again.”

“How dare you leave me! You need a lesson, is what you need!”

“Because you weren’t ready to know about her. I didn’t want to risk you running away again. I wanted you to have a chance to get yourself on solid ground, get your heart bolstered up first.

"You have to find a mother inside yourself. We all do. Even if we already have a mother, we still have to find this part of ourselves inside."

‘They don’t know what matters and what doesn’t,’ I said, filling in her sentence and feeling proud of myself for doing so.

‘I was gonna say, The problem is they know what matters, but they don’t choose it.

Let's imagine for a moment that we are tiny enough to follow a bee into a hive. Usually the first thing we would have to get used to is the darkness…

Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here.’