Lines that make you say "Ahhhhh!"

While most of the children's writing community has high-tailed it to LA for SCBWI's annual summer conference, I am left pouting at my desk, like a 2nd grader who wasn't picked for the recess game. So, instead I'm reading about the conference on Alice Pope's blog. Not the same as being there, but at least I didn't have to shell out $1,000 bucks to go!

So, to console myself (and those of you who are pouting, too), here are a few breathtaking lines from some of my recent reads:

She was serenity. Her lips faintly smiling. Her golden skin. The glowing thread-ends of her hair. She seemed to have been dipped in sunlight and set here to dry. -- from Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

Like so many of Archie's words, they seemed not to enter through my ears but to settle on my skin, there to burrow like tiny eggs awaiting the rain of my maturity, when they would hatch and I at last would understand. -- also from Stargirl

Just like real life, not all stories end happily. Sometimes friends betray us, and the people we love don't always love us back. Sometimes people die or leave us. I don't know yet if there will be a happy ending for my and my family. If life were a book, would I want to skip ahead to the ending? Or would I rather wait and read along to find out...? I'm not sure. -- from The Mother-Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick