"Everyone dies. The don't all have the chance to see what they wanted most. At least I've seen the Above. At least I've known True."

"Some people think the stars must look closer from up here. They don't. When you're up here, you realize how distant they really are-how impossible to reach."

"They could not write their names, but I can write mine, and I will again, somewhere where it will last for a long, long time. I will find Ky, and then I will find that place."

"Love changes what is probable and makes unlikely things possible."

"It's been so long since I've let myself feel anger that I don't just feel it. It covers my mouth and I swallow it down, the taste sharp and metal as though I'm gnawing through foilware."

"At first when the rain fell from the sky so wide and deepit smelled like sage, my favorite smellI went up on the plateau to watch it cometo see the gifts it always broughtbut this rain changed from blue to black and leftnothing."

"Good-bye, I say to Grandfather, and to my father, and I hold the tube in the river and pause a moment. We hold the choices of our fathers and mothers in our hands and when we cling on or let them slip between our fingers, those choices become our own."

"Blue is the most common eye color in Oria Province, but there is something different about his eyes and I'm not sure what it is. More depth? I wonder what he sees when he looks at me. If he seems to have depth to me, do I seem shallow and transparent to him?"

"It was a little thing, a baby tree, but still it tangled with things around it and required care to move. And when she pulled it out, it's roots still clung to Earth from it's old home."

"And it is strange that absence can feel like presence."

"I don't know what happens after we die. It doesn't seem to me like there can be much past this. But I suppose I can conceive that what we make and do can last beyond us. Maybe in a different place, on another plane."

"One of the things I've always liked about my husband is he's very good at lots of stuff. He was an English teacher when I met him. He wrote poetry and played the guitar. As time went on, he decided to go into economics, so he's very analytical and mathematical in addition to his artsy side."

"Sometimes you can't speak, not because others won't let you, but because you are afraid of what you'll say."

"And I'll tell her that I don't want my life to be samples and scraps. A taste of everything but a meal of nothing."

"Writing, painting, singing- it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death's footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives."

"Did you know Grandfather would give the poems to me? I ask.'We thought he might, my mother says.'Why didn't you stop him?'We didn't want to take away your choices, my mother says.'But Grandfather never did tell me about the Rising, I say.'I think he wanted you to find your own way, my mother says. She smiles. 'In that way, he was a true rebel. I think that's why he chose that argument with your father as his favorite memory. Though he was upset when the fight happened, later he came to see that your father was strong in choosing his own path, and he admired him for it."

"So much of life is in the smallness of moments...but they are harder to mark. So we need the grander celebrations and occasions. People like to feel significant."

"All of the things that were shown in early studies to be good for longevity-happy marriages, healthy bodies-are ours to have. We live long,good lives. We die on our eightieth birthdays, surrounded by our families, before dementia sets in. Cancer, heart disease, and most debilitatingillnesses are almost entirely eradicated. This is as close to perfect as any society has ever managed to get."

"It strikes me that perhaps this is part of what we are fighting to choose. Which pain to feel."

"What are the gifts given to we who live Below?'Long life, health, strength, and happiness.'What is the curse of those who live Above?'Short life, illness, weakness, and misery.'Is this fair?'It is fair. It is as the gods decreed at the time of the Divide. Some have to stay Above so that humanity might survive Below.'Then give thanks."

"I know how it feels when people look right through you, or worse, see you as something or someone other than what you are."

"I'll stand next to that fountain and wait until the Official find me. And when she does and asks me what I'm doing, I'll tell her and everyone else that I know: t hey are giving us pieces of a real life instead of the whole thing. And I'll tell her that I don't want my life to be samples and scraps. A taste of everything but a meal of nothing."

"What did you think about?' I wish I could tell him that I thought about him, but I lied to him once and I won't do it again. And besides, I wasn't thinking about Xander either. 'I thought about angels,' I say.'Angels?'You know. The ones in the old stories. How they can fly to heaven.' 'Do you think anyone believes in them anymore?' He asks.'I don't know. No. Do you?'I believe in you,' he says, his voice hushed and almost reverent. 'That's more faith than I ever thought I'd have."

"In the end you can't always choose what to keep. You can only choose how you let it go."

"But then I realize that even if I did have a soul, it's not as though someone else would be there. It would only be more of me."

"Now that I've found the way to fly, which direction should I go into the night?"

"No,' she says, as if the suggestion is ridiculous. 'I wouldn't go back to where I'm from. I'd go someplace I've never been."

"This is a difficult balance, telling the truth: how much to share, how much to keep, which truths will wound but not ruin, which will cut too deep to heal."

"At first, that's who I was. I wanted to know more about this boy who lives among us, but who never truly speaks... But now I feel like finding out about him is one of the ways I found out about myself. I did not expect to love his words. I did no expect to find myself in the."

"Then he lets go and walks down the path, without another word. He doesn't look back. But I watch him go. I watch him all the way home."

"Isn't it funny how the memories you cherish before a breakup can become your worst enemies afterwards? The thoughts you loved to think about, the memories you wanted to hold up to the light and view from every angle - it suddenly seems a lot safer to lock them in a box, far from the light of day and throw away the key. It's not an act of bitterness. It's an act if self-preservation. It's not always a bad idea to stay behind the window and look out at life instead, is it?"

"I'm falling in love. I am in love. and it's not with Xander, though I do love him. I'm sure of that, as sure as I am of the fact what I feel for Ky is something different."