The Secret Life of Bees

“There is nothing perfect...only life.”

“I hadn't been out to the hives before, so to start off she gave me a lesson in what she called 'bee yard etiquette'. She reminded me that the world was really one bee yard, and the same rule...”

“You could say I'd never had a true religious moment, the kind where you know yourself spoken to by a voice that seems other than yourself, spoken to so genuinely you see the words shining on...”

“If you need something from somebody always give that person a way to hand it to you.”

“Look, I know you meant well creating the world and all, but how could you let it get away from you like this? How come you couldn't stick with your original idea of paradise? People's lives...”

“The world will give you that once in awhile, a brief timeout; the boxing bell rings and you go to your corner, where somebody dabs mercy on your beat-up life.”

“He'd gone to church for forty years and was only getting worse. It seemed like this should tell God something.”

“I realized it for the first time in my life: there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don't even know it...”

“My mother was a good Catholic -- she went to mass twice a week at St. Mary's in Richmond, but my father was an Orthodox Eclectic.”

“Knowing can be a curse on a person's life. I'd traded in a pack of lies for a pack of truth, and I didn't know which one was heavier. Which one took the most strength to carry around? It was...”