"Stairway to Hell or Yellow Brick Road? Why don't you give your Magic 8 Ball a shake and see if it's ready to play again."

"Don't think so. We all make our choices, and those choices have consequences."

"Hey Rid?'She stopped and turned to look at him, almost ruefully. Like she couldn't help what she was any more then a shark could help being a shark, but if she could...'Yeah, Shrinky Dink?'You're not all bad.'She looked right at him and almost smiled. 'You know what they say. Maybe I'm just drawn that way."

"They really hate you, yes they do. They hate everyone, how 'bout you?"

"If you could imagine the color of anger, it had been splashed over every wall. Rage, something dense and seething, was hanging from every chandelier, resentment woven into thick carpets padding the room, hatred flickering underneath every lampshade. The floor was bathed in a creeping shadow, a particular darkness that had seeped up into the walls."

"Well? Is it true? Did she?'Did she what?'You know. Fall outta the crazy tree and hit every branch on the way down?"

"There's something about sitting alone in the dark that reminds you how big the world really is, and how far apart we all are. The stars look like they're so close, you could reach out and touch them. But you can't. Sometimes things look a lot closer than they are."

"She was wearing a purple T-shirt, with a skinny black dress over it that made you remember how much of a girl she was, and trashed black boots that made you forget."

"I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape."

"Lena was going down the list of John's attributes in her mind, a list I was hoping wasn't too long. 'He could see and hear and smell things I couldn't.'Link inhaled deeply, then coughed. 'Dude, you really need a shower."

"I guess the sky in real life isn't actually perfect. Maybe that's what makes it so perfect."

"History was a bitch sometimes. You couldn't change where you were from. But still, you didn't have to stay there. You didn't have to stay stuck in the past, like the ladies in the DAR, or the Gatlin Historical Society, or the Sisters. And you didn't have to accept that things had to be the way they were, like Lena."

"The poems are all wrong. It's a bang, a really big bang. Not a whimper. And sometimes gold can stay."

"Because if I lost her, I would be lost, too."

"Laws of physicslaws of loveof time and spaceand the (in)between place(in)between you and meand where we arelost and lookinglooking and lost."

"Books?' Ridley looked disgusted. 'Carry?"

"Love is a spell created by mortals."

"It was like being born in Germany after World War II, being from Japan after Pearl Harbor, or America after Hiroshima. History was a bitch sometimes. You couldn't change where you were from. But still, you didn't have to stay there."

"Theres something about sitting alone in the dark that reminds you how big the world really is, and how far apart we all are. The stars look like they're close, like you could reach out and touch them. But you cant because sometimes things look alot closer than they seem."

"My body was jerking and shaking, and I remembered John when he was in the Tunnels with Lena. The weird jerking and twitching he seemed unable to control.Was this what it felt like to be in the grip of Abraham Ravenwood?"

"In Light there is Dark, and in Dark there is Light."

"But I was beginning to feel like it all fit together, the same way everything in the bowl ends up in the bisquits, as Amma would say."

"The anger welled inside me, with no where to go. I could feel it eating away at me. I knew if i didn't find a way to release it, it would destroy me."

"Because saving the people you love isn't stupid. It isn't even a choice."

"But when you're in love, you're not in control of what you think or say or do. And there is nothing I love more than control, and nothing I love less than not having it. So you tell me -what is a person like me supposed to do with a feeling like that?"

"I want you here. I don't care if it's a hundred degrees and every blade of grass dies. Without you, none of that matters to me."

"Her eyes were like the sea before a storm on the Carolina coast."

"The stars look like they're so close, you could reach out and touch them. But you can't. Sometimes things look a lot closer than they are."

"The right thing and the easy thing are never the same."

"What am I doing here? The Southern Star has vanished, a Cataclyst is calling the moon out of time at the mythical Great Barrier, and you're asking what I'm doing here? Are you serious?"

"Her voice, unfolding like a tiny bright memory in the darkest, furthest corner of my mind."

"Sometimes moving forward changes what's behind you."

"A little known fact: I read all the time. books were the one thing that got me out of Gatlin, even if it was only for a little while."

"Teenagers. Everything is so apocalyptic."

"I care. They bother me. And that's why I'm stupid. That makes me exponentially more stupid than stupid. I'm stupid to the power of stupid."

"We are given to the great, for great purpose, to great ends. We are given to the grave, for grave purposes, to grave ends."

"Knowing you don't have much time left changes things. You get kind of philosophical. And you figure things out-more like, they figure themselves out-and everything gets real clear."

"It wasn't about how she looked, which was pretty, even though she was always wearing the wrong clothes and those beat-up sneakers. It wasn't about what she said in class - usually something no one else would've thought of, and if they had, something they wouldn't have dared to say. It wasn't that she was different from all the other girls at Jackson. That was obvious. It was that she made me realize how much I was just like the rest of them, even if I wanted to pretend I wasn't."

"You're so full of crap, you could pass for a toilet."

"We don't get to chose what is true. We only get to choose what we do about it."

"Her hair curled around her shoulders, long and loose, held back with glinting clips, in one those magical ways girls have of making their hair look like it is supposed to be up, but also sort of falling down."

"I couldn't look at her. I'd been jealous and hurt, and I had dragged Liv into the middle of my own broken mess of a life. All because I thought Lena didn't love me anymore. But I was stupid, and I was wrong. Lena loved me so much, she was willing to risk everything to save me. I had given up on Lena, after she had refused to give up on me. I owed her my life. It was as simple as that."

"Ridley was like a beautiful snake - you couldn't let her get close without the risk of being bitten."

"I tried desperately not to think about her eyes, about the way they lit up when she saw me. Or her hands, the way she waved them in the air as she talked, as if she thought she could pull words out of the sky with her fingers. And her arms, wrapping around me like my own house, because she was the place where I was from."

"I am the Lilum. Time. Truth. Destiny. The Endless River. The Wheel of Fate. You do not command me."

"He knew, perhaps better than anyone, that we don't get to choose what is true. We only get to choose what we do about it."

"Every loss, every mistake, was seared into her soul, creating a different kind of tattoo, one made from rage and abandonment, heart break and tears."

"Link says if a girl says not to get her a birthday present that means get me a birthday present and make sure it's jewelry."

"While I thought that I was learning how to live, I've been learning how to die."

"You can read minds, and you didn't tell me? Link stared at me like he just found out I was the Silver Surfer. He rubbed his head nervously. 'Hey, man, all that stuff about Lena? I was yankin' your chain. He looked away. 'Are you doin' it now? You're doin' it, aren't you? Dude, get out of my head. He backed away from me and into the bookshelf.'I can't read your mind, you idiot."