"There are worse things than being robbed..." I could smell the sick old-meat stench on his breath, like he really had eaten my grandmother. "...worse things than dyin' even. You be a good boy, Little Red, and maybe you'll get to live awhile. Maybe you'll get to die in your own natural time."

"Please give me a single reason why I shouldn't hurl myself beneath the wheels of that bus."

"And," added Mikey. "she's my sister."The others looked at him for a moment, and broke out laughing."Yeah, yeah," Squirrel scoffed, "and the McGill is my cousin."Now Allie burst out laughing, which made Mikey more annoyed."If the McGill was your cousin," Mikey said, "I can guarantee he'd disown you."

"Elasticity is a fundamental principle of perception."

"Perhaps that is the greatest crime of conquest--that a civilization is denied the right to evolve beyond its own embarrassment."

"I can't destroy things so beautiful.""Time will destroy them if you don't. Time destroys everything. But if you destroy them, it will mean something."

"I went home and tried to sleep, but couldn't, so I stared up at the moon, watching how it's trailing edge faded into darkness, so close to being full, but not quite there. A pregnant moon, Grandma called it. Full almost to bursting, and ready to give birth to something unthinkable."

"You see demons in the eyes of the world, and the world sees a bottomless pit in yours."

"Roland glares at Connor and Connor glares back. Then he says what he always says at moments like this."Nice socks."Although Roland doesn't look down right away, it derails him just enough for him to back off. He doesn't check to see if his socks match until he thinks Connor isn't looking. And the moment he does, Connor snickers. Small victories are better than none."

"I love you, Risa," he says. "Every last part of me."

"The fear of not living is a deep, abiding dread of watching your own potential decompose into irredeemable disappointment when 'should be' gets crushed by what is."

"Those eyes of his just look up at me, pupils dilated in the diffused lights of the room. Wide, black pools, seeking out galaxies."

"This book is so interesting. I always wonder what's going to happen next."

"And you know the darkness beyond despair, just as intimately as you know the soaring heights. Because in this and all universes, there is balance. You can't have the one without facing the other. And sometimes you think you can take it because the joy is worth the despair, and sometimes you know you can't take it and how did you ever think you could? And there is the dance; strength and weakness, confidence and desolation."

"Lethargy. It's a word I know, because it's in one of my father's favorite expressions. Lethargy breeds lethargy. It means the more you lie around doing nothing, the more you want to lie around doing nothing. Your limbs and your mind feel so heavy that it becomes a major effort just to lift your arm to channel surf."

"But remember that good intentions pave many roads. Not all of them lead to hell."

"Live by your impulses, and you'll be just like them. You're better than that, aren't you, Red?"

"And I think, if thoughts are worth a penny, how much less promises must be worth. Especially the ones you're likely to break."

"Hope in the shadow of fear is the world's most powerful motivator."